Guess what is going on in these pictures

[STINEY]

As the title says, take a stab at what's up in the barn

[squirrel]

Barn rat alignment?

[anotheridiot]

slingshot?

[38P]

Prelude to hospital? ("Hey Mikey, how's about you get under Pap Pa's well-braced Meyers Manx while I yank on this cord?)

[STINEY]

Barn rat alignment?

String alignment lessons for the barn rats, yes. We replaced all the tie-rod ends (in the name of safety Speedy) and then learned the basics of doing a pretty good alignment without being screwed over by the local yokels and their fancy machines. You know, the ones they park your car on for an hour, drink coffee, then charge you $120 for the privilege? Those guys make my blood boil.... grrr...

Prelude to hospital? ("Hey Mikey, how's about you get under Pap Pa's well-braced Meyers Manx while I yank on this cord?)

Guess I should have gotten out the cinder-blocks and did it right. Those things are just so darn heavy.......besides, all of mine have cars parked on top of them......hyyuk, hyyuk, hyyuk.....

[anotheridiot]

I confused the tape measure for a bungee cord.

[BBR]

Haha I did the same thing to my car the other day.

[CDMBill]

"ok so when he slides back nder the dune buggy, the string will pull on the shovel handle, the shovel will fall over onto the bike, the bike will roll into the bucket of tranny fluid and bucket will tip over and look like a gint puddle of blood and when dad cusses the spilled fluid mom will come running and see the tranny fluid all over dada and and the floor and al&$);$@ wil break loose"

Or something like that.

[Caveman Tony]

Haha I did the same thing to my car the other day.

Eh? Slingshot your mustang at some dude with a camera?

[STINEY]

"ok so when he slides back nder the dune buggy, the string will pull on the shovel handle, the shovel will fall over onto the bike, the bike will roll into the bucket of tranny fluid and bucket will tip over and look like a gint puddle of blood and when dad cusses the spilled fluid mom will come running and see the tranny fluid all over dada and and the floor and al&$);$@ wil break loose"

Or something like that.

Wow Bill, you are good at this.

Wait a minute...... how do you get a camera feed from here to there? Very sneaky man, very sneaky.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Wow Bill, you are good at this.

Wait a minute...... how do you get a camera feed from here to there? Very sneaky man, very sneaky.

His day job is writing fiction

[Russell]

Are you just setting the toe? Will you explain how you do this? I have gotten one close enough to drive just measuring the front and back on the tires but this looks better.

[STINEY]

Yep, setting toe-in.

Using the tires can work, but finding consistant flat surfaces can be difficult, my tires always seem to have lumps in them.

So I like to reference off the drums/rotors. This can also be done by clamping straight angle iron to the surfaces and measuring off of that.

Basically, you tie the string to a wheel bolt (vw's used these instead of studs), run the bolt in to get the string at the rear flush with the drum. Then wrap the string around a jackstand, and move the stand over until the string is just touching the front surface of the drum. You have now established a line for that drum that extends forward enough to be easily measured.

Do the same for the other side.

Now with a tape measure, I use a third jack stand to hook the tape to. I set this up so that the 1" mark is exactly under the string, using the jackstand adjustment to bring the tape up to the string and hold it there.

Then measure across to the other string. Move the third jackstand/tape measure forward a couple of feet and measure again to see how far you are off.

Adjust tie-rods and repeat.

Cheap and easy.


(The slightly better way is to reference the straight line from the rear drums, and measure in towards the front drum from that string, but on a swing-axle VW that is a difficult proposition. This method is a compromise because of the camber/rear toe changes of the VW swingaxle suspension)


Clear as mud?

[Russell]

I get it if you are looking for zero toe. I guess i don't know the how toe is measured. If the spec is 1/8 is that in a foot, the diameter of the tire? The farther up the string the the number should change unless you are looking for zero, so what rate do you use?

[STINEY]

I see what you are asking, and you are spot on. That's where the math/geometry comes in...........the factory numbers are usually at the rim, you would extropolate from there.

This buggy gets beat on offroad 90% of the time, the rest is short trips to the gas station, about 1 mile. Add in the bumpsteer in this suspension design for even more fun choosing a specific number for the toe setting.

That said..........I like to run as close to zero toe as I can get. Allowing for suspension bushing deflection, 1/8"-1/4" gets me real close to zero on the asphalt. This is as measured out at the front of the tires, and at 2' from the front of the tires. Its how I was taught as a kid and has always served me well. Light steering with no wandering, excellent tire wear.