Do it yourself alignment

[Puch]

I decided to do my own alignment. Mostly because of my growing disgust with the level of service that I keep running into. When I drop it off at any shop, i never give an attitude and I don’t rush them unless it starts getting way over the estimated completion time. Even then, I try to just go with the flow as best as I can. However, I keep running into complete incompetence everywhere I go. I’m beginning to think it’s a conspiracy just against me. I’m joking of course, but every experience over the past two years is bad.
I simply don’t trust any shops anymore!
That being said, the only thing that gets adjusted when i bring my JT in is the toe.
That’s the easiest thing to adjust so I decided to it myself.
After buying a new steersmart tie rod and draglink, I actually paid a shop to do an alignment. When I got it back it was screwed up. It pulled to the left. The steersmart draglink is basically three components. You have the left and right sides and a main bar in between that you use to adjust the tow.
This shop had the drivers side jammed up into the knuckle. It was so badly jammed up, that when I loosened the the bracket it snapped back down with a loud bang like it was under a lot of stress.
I’ve looked around on the interweb for the recommended toe settings with 35” tires. It seems to very from 1/8” toe in to 1/8” toe out. That’s a BIG difference. The two most common settings are 3/16” in and 3/16” out. So just to confuse myself more, I decided to create this poll to get your suggestions.

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[ShadowsPapa]

First off - toe doesn't impact whether or not it pulls unless it's off so ungodly far.........
There's nothing a shop can do that would make it pull other than one tire inflated more than the other.
All a dealership can do is set total toe and toe split (which makes the steering wheel straight at 0 degrees and gives you have of the total toe on each side)
So your pull is something else.

What you need depends on your vehicle being stock or not.
Stock vehicles should be just fine at the specified toe number.
Change wheel dimensions and tires - then things can need to be tweaked.
I've never run anything outside of the factory specs but then I pay attention to trying to stay within the way it was engineered.

Why are you seeing such a range? Because the factory spec is a fair range itself.

I'd set it to 1/8" total toe IN and go from there. See how it drives, handles, and how the tires wear.
If the tires start to feather across the tire, you have too much or not enough - judge by the direction of the feathering. (I did brakes and alignments to work through college and then did them for years after when working in a shop so sometimes you "just know" based on training, gut, experience and how the tires wear.

Get the toe set, center the wheel - centering the wheel doesn't change your toe so you can set one, then the other.

You are going to get those who argue for toe out, and those who argue for toe in.
And guess what - they may ALL be correct as long as it handles fine and the tires aren't wearing oddly.

 

[Charles 236]

Exactly as above. Also I will add that many times people complain of "pulling" to one side when what they actually mean is that the steering wheel is not centered.

 

[Puch]

Exactly as above. Also I will add that many times people complain of "pulling" to one side when what they actually mean is that the steering wheel is not centered.

Thanks for the feedback.
I should clarify. It was pulling to the left because they had adjusted the left side up against the outer wheel ( knuckle??). It was literally jammed up so that I had to release the tension on it. Then it drove straight.

 

[Puch]

This is how it should look.
They had that end of the link adjusted and locked into place so that the end was tilted up as far as it could possibly go and had a lot of tension on it. So much tension that it snapped back into the position it is in now once I loosened the bracket.
Sorry if I’m not making any sense. I don’t know how to explain it any better.
I did my own alignment after this and did 1/8” toe in. It seems to have a lot of wonder now at highway speeds.

 

[JTenn]

I just did an alignment on mine yesterday. I shoot for 3-4mm (1/8-5/32) toe in. Works extremely well for me. I have 35's and 2" mopar lift with all Rock Jock steering components. This is the tool I use but there are others out there as well. I also bought 2, 10 foot cloth tapes on Amazon. I evenly clamp both tapes to one side of the tool.
https://bleepinjeep.com/product/bleepinjeep-alignment-tool/

 

[Puch]

I just did an alignment on mine yesterday. I shoot for 3-4mm (1/8-5/32) toe in. Works extremely well for me. I have 35's and 2" mopar lift with all Rock Jock steering components. This is the tool I use but there are others out there as well. I also bought 2, 10 foot cloth tapes on Amazon. I evenly clamp both tapes to one side of the tool.
https://bleepinjeep.com/product/bleepinjeep-alignment-tool/

Yeah, I did see those. I ended up making my own, but I won’t embarrass myself and show a picture of them. Probably would be a good idea for me to order something that is more professionally designed.

 

[JTenn]

Nothing wrong with fabbing your own. For me it's a matter of time vs cost so I just bought them. At the time I paid like $75 for them shipped. I couldn't make them for that price.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Exactly as above. Also I will add that many times people complain of "pulling" to one side when what they actually mean is that the steering wheel is not centered.

Yes, I failed to type that in, got in a hurry. Pull means you let go and the truck takes off in that direction, left or right. But if you let go and it doesn't immediately go to the left, for example, it's not a pull.
Pull and wander are also different things.
Steering wheel not being at 0 degrees when going straight on a flat road, though, makes many think it's pulling because they have the wheel off-center to go straight.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I just did an alignment on mine yesterday. I shoot for 3-4mm (1/8-5/32) toe in. Works extremely well for me. I have 35's and 2" mopar lift with all Rock Jock steering components. This is the tool I use but there are others out there as well. I also bought 2, 10 foot cloth tapes on Amazon. I evenly clamp both tapes to one side of the tool.
https://bleepinjeep.com/product/bleepinjeep-alignment-tool/

I used aluminum angle stock from Menards and did that.
But then I always have plenty of stuff like that laying around gathering dust and getting in the way.

Yeah, I did see those. I ended up making my own, but I won’t embarrass myself and show a picture of them. Probably would be a good idea for me to order something that is more professionally designed.

Why? As long as they are true. I checked mine against my levels and a 4' straight edge I have.
Accuracy matters, looks don't.

 

[Gizmo]

I made a home depot Toe-in tool many years ago . Only mod was file the letters off the ends of the 1" couplings and check to see that all 4 end up being the same length when done . Worked fine on my 97 99 05 12 Wranglers and a few Rams . At the end of the 36"square tubing I have marks on the tubing for different diameter ties ,35 come out to about 5/32 or a bat 1/8 for simplicity . The tires on my 99 are are 35" Maxis bighorns which are now about 15 years old and wearing perfetly

 

[CrazyCooter]

All of those alignment tools are a joke! I think they could be useful in the shop when roughing in a new build, but would NEVER trust for long term settings.

You need to paint/scribe a perfect line on the tire and use something that will allow the tire to slip when making the adjustments and measure with a tape or toe bar.

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Long...EGoogle&utm_source=CSE&utm_campaign=CSEGOOGLE

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Longacre-52-79622-Toe-Bar,283114.html

 

[ShadowsPapa]

All of those alignment tools are a joke! I think they could be useful in the shop when roughing in a new build, but would NEVER trust for long term settings.

You need to paint/scribe a perfect line on the tire and use something that will allow the tire to slip when making the adjustments and measure with a tape or toe bar.

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Long...EGoogle&utm_source=CSE&utm_campaign=CSEGOOGLE

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Longacre-52-79622-Toe-Bar,283114.html

Why doesn't indexing off a true wheel count?
As far as tires slipping - I used a couple pieces of steel with grease between them under each wheel. The smooth steel slides easily on the grease. Didn't feel like buying the real plates sold for that purpose.
We also had a spreader that pushed the wheels apart in the front to duplicate road forces. However, that only really works on stock vehicles as once you change certain things, the forces can tend to do the opposite.
I see no reason indexing off the rim, like commercial equipment had done for decades, would work. It's going to be true.
Spinning a tire to get a straight line on it isn't any different.
You don't need to be within 0.001' or degrees anyway, because the road forces will vary and the actual toe while driving will change.
I've yet to see an alignment shop (either as a customer or as the person doing the alignment) scribe a line on a tire. Not on trucks or daily drivers anyway.

 

[Gizmo]

All of those alignment tools are a joke! I think they could be useful in the shop when roughing in a new build, but would NEVER trust for long term settings.

You need to paint/scribe a perfect line on the tire and use something that will allow the tire to slip when making the adjustments and measure with a tape or toe bar.

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Long...EGoogle&utm_source=CSE&utm_campaign=CSEGOOGLE

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Longacre-52-79622-Toe-Bar,283114.html

Sorry to many of us on many Jeep forums have been doing it this way for way to long . Some pull the wheels off and clamp the Tubing on the brake rotors also with same result . My 15 year old tires tend to say this works just fine on a Jeep straight axle. Im not going to argue just agree to diagree. Most of the tires I use are 35s with low enough air pressure that changing toe as little as needed side wall flex allows the wheels to move and if I feel it will need to slide the tire an contractor bag folded under each tire provides plenty of slippage

 

[CrazyCooter]

Why doesn't indexing off a true wheel count?
As far as tires slipping - I used a couple pieces of steel with grease between them under each wheel. The smooth steel slides easily on the grease. Didn't feel like buying the real plates sold for that purpose.
We also had a spreader that pushed the wheels apart in the front to duplicate road forces. However, that only really works on stock vehicles as once you change certain things, the forces can tend to do the opposite.
I see no reason indexing off the rim, like commercial equipment had done for decades, would work. It's going to be true.
Spinning a tire to get a straight line on it isn't any different.
You don't need to be within 0.001' or degrees anyway, because the road forces will vary and the actual toe while driving will change.
I've yet to see an alignment shop (either as a customer or as the person doing the alignment) scribe a line on a tire. Not on trucks or daily drivers anyway.

Sure....Indexing off a true wheel so long it's true, mounted to a true hub, and the rotor hat is true as well? Add those items' runout together and you have a situation where there isn't any point in checking the toe with this method?

The commercial equipment you speak of that mounts to the wheel gets runout by turning the wheel yes? Same concept as painting the line and eliminating the error. If the wheel is 1" out of true it will still show actual readings where the tool shown above will not.

Ask yourself......How many potholes or curbs have you hit over the course of 50K miles? Is your stuff true? I'm not betting on it!

I too use a sheets of steel greased for my slip plates.

If you haven't seen anyone paint a line on the tire, then you haven't worked in an old skool alignment shop where we insist on results better than the computer can put out. I have caught computerized machine errors so many times and shop shops refuse to accept it.....They always believe the garbage the computer spits out. If you put shit in you will only get shit out?

Then add in the labor factor........The guy running the alignment machine is usually the least skilled guy in the shop. His job is to work for min wage and pump out $60 alignments where the screens read green, but don't nessesarily work correctly together.

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