TR2/3/3A TR3A Front End Alignment guru wanted

[CraigLandrum]

In the process of installing our steering wheel, stator tube, and control head, we noticed that the front wheels had some serious (> 1 inch) toe out, causing me to be question if it was even possible to be sure the steering wheel was going on straight.

So I insisted we fix the toe out so the front wheels at least exhibited some kind of sane configuration. To make a long story short, we fiddled with adjusting the tie rod ends/nuts until both front wheels were parallel or with a bit of toe in.

The factory manual calls for 7.68 inch distance between centers on the tie rod ends and that's about whet we ended up with. It also calls for 1/8 inch toe in (if I recall correctly).

Is there any way for a home garage guy to get close to the proper alignment or is this something that only grizzled vets with commercial tools can accomplish? Any tips for doing this at home would be appreciated.

 

[TR3driver]

1/8" is for bias ply tires; radials (eg Michelin X) are supposed to be set to 0 toe. So I think you could reasonbly try either one, and see which suits you better.

Personally, I find that zero improves responsiveness, but makes the tires more apt to follow ruts in the road. I like the handling, so I set zero.

There are several ways to set toe yourself. I made up a simple gauge from scrap wood that I use. Basically a length of 1x2 long enough to reach across the car (I left some excess to use as a handle). Then some rectangles of Masonite (pressed pulpboard) screwed to it, so that in the vertical position they reach up to the approximate centerline of the tire.

You'll need the car parked on a reasonably flat surface. To use it, first jack up the front of the car temporarily. Spin each wheel in turn, and hold a sharp object to the tread while it spins, to get a mark all around the tire. (I generally use the blade of my pocket knife.) Lower the car and bounce it a few times (or roll back and forth) to get the suspension to settle.

Now insert the gauge behind the tires and turn it to bring the Masonite up to the approximate centerline. Use a pencil to mark the upper edge next to the marks you made on the tires. Transfer the gauge to the front of the tires and line up one pair of marks. The distance between the other pair of marks gives you the toe directly (in or out).

Done with reasonable care; I believe this method to be more accurate than most alignment shops with commercial tools generally accomplish.

 

[Don Elliott]

I have never had a wheel alignment in 50 years on my 1958 TR3A. When I was reassembling the car in 1990 during the body-off restoration, I checked the dimension you wrote about. One side was about 1/2" short and the other side was about 1/2" too long. I have no idea how they got that way, but the un-even tire wear from 1967 to about 1972 showed that something was wrong.

All I did was re-set the tie-rods equal and to the correct dimension and in a bit over 100,000 miles, the tire wear has been flat with 56,000 miles in 11 years on my Michelins, then 37,000 on my Kelly-Springfields and the Vredesteins are the latest with only 7,000 miles on them.

 

[martx-5]

thanks Randall...i have to do this on my car also and this approach seems MUCH EASIER then any others that i've seen. unfortunatly, it will be a couple of months before i can get to it...darn broken arm!

edit: btw, my buddy with the TR3B did the toe using the measurement in the book. i've driven the car, and the alignment felt real good and after several thousand miles, the tire wear looks normal. i have a rack conversion, so i can't use that method.

 

[PeterK]

Before setting the toe with my toe gauge, I setup my 3A with strings tied to 4 small jack stands at the four corners of the car. A poor man's 4-wheel alignment but I didn't want my car to crab walk down the road. I measured the distance from the strings to the rims and set them equal distance and parallel front to rear. Keep in mind that the rear and front are not the same width.

To do this, set-up the strings by eyeball first, then measure the distance from the string at the rear and front of each rear wheel. Move the jack stands slightly so the string to rim measurement is equal at the rear . Then as the string projects forward, set the steering wheel straight ahead and measure at the rear of each front rim, set them to be equal. This measurement will not be the same as the rear string to rim measurement. This is the starting point for setting the toe. The whole point is to get all four wheels parallel.

Randall's method works fine for setting toe but I own an inexpensive($25) toe-gauge on an aluminum rod from when I raced, so I used that.

Keep in mind that as you turn the tie-rods to set the toe, the steering wheel will also turn so have some one hold the steering wheel straight or (like me), you'll be doing it over.

 

[Guest]

The advise given is all very useful.On a TR if all the front end parts and frame are straight and undamaged,it's set the toe and let her go.The only thing I would also reccomend doing is adjust for road camber.Roads are not flat.They are pitched from the center to the right for drainage.That is why a car seems to drift gradually to the right when driven on what seems to be a flat road.When setting the center of the steering wheel, off set it to the right about 15 degrees.By doing this,as the car trys to drift right,you will slightly turn left to keep it straight,and if done correctly the steering wheel should be perfectly centered when driving.PS make sure all tire air pressures are correct.Tire pressure affects tire diameter.Different tire diameters affect handling.Tire stagger as used in NASCAR setups is an example of this.Also if you know someone with a magnetic caster camber gauge, have all the measurments checked.It's nice to know if tie wear problems do arise.Dont forget the angle of the dangle[Calulated in 1/8 degrees] VERY IMPORTANT!!!!:]

 

[TR3driver]

Oops, forgot to mention putting the wheels in the straight-ahead position. It is important, as the measured toe-in changes as the wheels turn.

However, adjusting toe with the wheels turned won't cause the car to 'crab' down the road; it only makes the toe wrong. If the car crabs, the rear wheels aren't parallel to the body.

For my "poor man's camber gauge", I use a carpenter's square and two 6" steel rulers (plus a reasonably flat floor) and a C-clamp (or two).

Set the short arm of the gauge on the floor with the long arm vertical next to the hub and the short arm at right angles to the car's length. Hold one of the rules so that it touches the wheel just above the bottom lip (so right outside the tire bead) and extends horizontally; note the marks where it crosses the carpenter's square. Clamp the rule to the square in that position (so the rule is parallel to the leg that was against the floor). (You don't need to try to hold it all in position against the car while doing the clamping.)

Now reposition the square on the floor as before, with the clamped rule just touching the wheel above the lower lip and the square solidly on the floor. Use the other rule to measure from the square to the wheel just below the top lip.

The difference in the two ruler readings, divided by the wheel diameter, is very close to the camber angle expressed in radians. Multiply it by 180/PI (57.3) to get degrees (or use your calculator's inverse sine function if it has one).

So for example, on a TR with 15" wheels; if the bottom rule was extended by 3" and the top rule by 2.5", 0.5 divided by 15 is .033.. Multiply that by 180/PI to get 1.9; which is very close to the specified camber of 2 degrees.

Within reasonable accuracy, each 0.25" difference represents 1 degree.

And again, I believe this method is at least equivalent in accuracy to that achieved by the typical alignment shop. I developed it on a non-LBC that would always wear out the front tires on the outside edge. 3 different alignment shops couldn't solve the problem with their $20,000 machines, but I did.

 

[Twosheds]

Is there any way for a home garage guy to get close to the proper alignment or is this something that only grizzled vets with commercial tools can accomplish? Any tips for doing this at home would be appreciated.

I'm kinda grizzled.

If you give me a suitable chair and a beverage, I will come over and talk you through the jackstand-and-string method or I can bring my gauge that's like PeterK's. You do the work and I talk.

I have modified a steering wheel nut sized socket by cutting a slot in it that will allow it to fit over the control head wiring harness. This makes it possible to position the steering wheel straight without pulling the harness out and putting it back in every time you reposition the wheel on the splines. But it's lent out as of now.

 

[PeterK]

All good stuff. Since Craig's car was taken completely apart, I suggested stringing it. Otherwise, as mentioned, it's toe and go since the TR3s don't have camber or caster adjustments.

I save the wobbly pop until after I'm done because it tends to affect my work. Now what was I doing?

 

[Moseso]

I had to re-read Randall's toe-in procedure a couple of times before I got it. Brilliant! That's just the sort of low-tech, but effective solution I love. I'll have to do that to the car this spring. I just put it back together with the outer tie-rods set at 7.68" and drove it. It feels fine, but I'd really like to check it before I put too many miles on it. Randall's system is easily affordable and certainly plenty accurate enough. Thanks for the post!

 

[WA1KWA]

Randall's method reminded me of what we did in the gas station 35 years ago. With one small difference.

We would smear baby powder on the treads & we were able to see our marks eaisly.

Like Randall said, no investment in mega-buck alingment machines.

Colin

 

[CraigLandrum]

Randall's home-grown toe-in method was exactly what I was looking for. Will string out the car as Peter suggests and then recheck our eyeballed toe-in using Randall's homemade tool. Being a serious woodworker, I have plenty of scrap lumber around to throw one together quickly. However, instead of using my pocketknife, and since its on the treads, I think I might give one of my daughters silver gel-pens a try. I think that will make a nice light line on the black tread.

The camber measurement is also interesting and I might give it a try to check it. Then again, if TR3's don't have any way to adjust it, perhaps I'm better off not knowing

And Twosheds, you can look forward to my son and I driving up to your place some time soon so you can drool ;-)

Thanks, guys - I collected all this sage advice in a PDF that I plan to keep handy.

 

[TR3driver]

However, instead of using my pocketknife, and since its on the treads, I think I might give one of my daughters silver gel-pens a try. I think that will make a nice light line on the black tread.

Good luck with that, Craig. IMO you'll just ruin the pen and not get a usable line, but perhaps you're better at it than I am. Don't forget you should spin the tire and hold the pen/knife steady while it drags across the spinning tire tread (to ensure that the mark follows the actual axis of rotation rather than any irregularities in the tire/wheel).

Tires are amazingly tough, the knife won't hurt it in the least. All you get is a nice dark line of cleaner rubber against the lighter slightly dirty rubber.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]The camber measurement is also interesting and I might give it a try to check it. Then again, if TR3's don't have any way to adjust it, perhaps I'm better off not knowing [/QUOTE]Something to be said for that. OTOH if you find a substantial error in camber, you'll know there is a serious problem that should be corrected. Kind of comes down to personal style ... I probably wouldn't bother, until after I'd driven the car and felt it was lacking.

OTOH one of my previous TR3As nearly killed me while I was still wondering what the problem was ... it pulled so hard to the left under braking that I could not hold it in the lane when someone suddenly pulled out in front of me. Checking the camber might have revealed that the left suspension had pulled loose from the frame. Fortunately, I only wound up straddling the median. Embarrassing, but no harm done.

 

[CraigLandrum]

Randall - your left suspension/median story brought back the painful memory of my second Healey 3000. Was tooling along when this oblivious ditz in an old VW pulled out of a shopping center on my right and expected all traffic to stop while she waited to turn left. Since I didn't want to bear left into oncoming traffic my only option was to try and make an emergency right turn into the very shopping center that she just pulled out of. Almost made it, but clipped her left rear bumper and ran the Healey up over the exit median in the shopping center, this ripping my low Healey's undercarriage to bits and bending it. At the time (1976) I was a Sgt in the Army at Ft. Meade and was at a disadvantage when dealing with my insurance company. They totalled it out, and I ended up getting about $1200 for the car, but I talked them out of the wreck, which I sold for parts for another $500 or so.

 

[newmexTR3]

Spin each wheel in turn, and hold a sharp object to the tread while it spins, to get a mark all around the tire. (I generally use the blade of my pocket knife.) Lower the car and bounce it a few times (or roll back and forth) to get the suspension to settle.

Can someone clarify this part of Randall's alignment process for me? Should the marked line be dead-on the center of the tire? Or is an approximate line okay? I used a silver-inked sharpie, which worked great, but the line that resulted is a bit wobbly.

Cheers,
Gavin

 

[TR3driver]

It doesn't matter where the line is on the tire, but it has to not be 'wobbly'.

Or at least don't use the wobbly part.

 

[DougF]

Test driving my TR3 after a front end repair, I found the alignment to be dangerously bad. As I pulled back into the garage, I noticed the hard plastic sheeting(1/2 of an office chair floor mat) that I had been laying on, twisted as I drove over it. I adjusted each side until the car rolled without twisting it.
A trip to the alignment shop showed the front end to be in spec. It was an effective but not the most efficient method of doing things.

 

[3798j]

I thought this was a pretty neat homemade alignment approach: https://forums.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=931155

 

[pjsmetana]

I like this approach myself https://www.allpar.com/fix/alignment.html

Nothing more than some push-pins and a piece of string. I've seen this same trick done with tape instead of push-pins at the track. Fast and easy.

 

[startech47]

You are trying to place a reference line around the tire that you can use to measure the toe both at the front and the rear of the tire. If your line is wobbly your toe adjustment will not be accurate.