SCFFR
05-31-2013, 12:34 PM
Since I'm waiting on the body to come back from the painter and the chassis is pretty much done, I thought I would go ahead and get the front end alignment done. I took it to a friend of mine whom I've known for over 50 years. He has been a mechanic for all that time and still an active drag racer.
We talked about the impact of not having the body mounted so he took some measurements and then had me sit in the car and didn't see any differences. However, he did comment that I should bring the finished car back after I had put about 500 miles on it and he would recheck everything.
Of course, it took way more work to get the car loaded, moved and unloaded that it did for him to do the alignment. We ran into one small problem that he easily corrected. Once he had set the front wheels straight, my steering wheel was about 90 degrees off (CCW). I couldn't just removed the steering wheel and rotate it since the attachment screws aren't evenly spaced. Also, I had sent the hub to Russ Thompson to be machined for his turn signal assembly so the top of the hub was marked. He just disconnected the steering shaft from the rack and ground a new flat spot on the splined shaft. This allowed the steering wheel to be centered "straight up". I obviously didn't do a good job of centering it when I installed the rack and column.
Once he had finished the alignment, he helped me get the clutch adjustment fine tuned (about 1/2" of free play in the pedal) and get the car back on the trailer. All of this for $35.......it was a good day.
Ron
1810718108
We talked about the impact of not having the body mounted so he took some measurements and then had me sit in the car and didn't see any differences. However, he did comment that I should bring the finished car back after I had put about 500 miles on it and he would recheck everything.
Of course, it took way more work to get the car loaded, moved and unloaded that it did for him to do the alignment. We ran into one small problem that he easily corrected. Once he had set the front wheels straight, my steering wheel was about 90 degrees off (CCW). I couldn't just removed the steering wheel and rotate it since the attachment screws aren't evenly spaced. Also, I had sent the hub to Russ Thompson to be machined for his turn signal assembly so the top of the hub was marked. He just disconnected the steering shaft from the rack and ground a new flat spot on the splined shaft. This allowed the steering wheel to be centered "straight up". I obviously didn't do a good job of centering it when I installed the rack and column.
Once he had finished the alignment, he helped me get the clutch adjustment fine tuned (about 1/2" of free play in the pedal) and get the car back on the trailer. All of this for $35.......it was a good day.
Ron
1810718108