diving in turns

swisherred

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Took the newport out today for the first time on the highway since rebuilding the suspension and doing the alignment. I'm not positive the shop really knew how to align old cars. At speed the steering seems unresponsive for a moment in the wheel then kinda dives into the lane change a little quicker than I would expect. Any thoughts? It doesnt feel quite normal to me and makes it difficult to relax while driving. Alignment or sector shaft adjustment? Could it be having the 14s on the front still when I swapped the rears to 15s? (this was for testing the speedo drive until i get my 15" rims in.)
 
Did they give you a report card of the before & after of your alignment spec's? If they didn't, take it back and say do it again and get me the numbers from the machine. This seems to be the norm now with the modern equipment. Also, do you have the FSM spec's? Make sure that they follow your orders, it's your car and you should be happy with the work! Stay there and watch them from the outside! Good Luck
 
Did they give you a report card of the before & after of your alignment spec's? If they didn't, take it back and say do it again and get me the numbers from the machine. This seems to be the norm now with the modern equipment. Also, do you have the FSM spec's? Make sure that they follow your orders, it's your car and you should be happy with the work! Stay there and watch them from the outside! Good Luck
no report card...I know they used some sort of lights mounted to the wheels...not the normal setup that I have seen....and a young kid doing it that really didnt strike me as knowing what he was doing. He said he had to jack the body up to clear the rims so he could attach the lights after taking off the skirts. Id rather not take it back there. Hell...it took him 4 hours to do it. I do have the FSM for the specs.
 
Ask around your local car clubs and such for someone who knows how to do old cars. Who knows how they set it but jacking it up shows they know nothing about how the old cars suspension works. You want the car at the ride height it'll be driven at
 
I agree it sounds like an alignment problem. The castor angle is the likely culprit but incorrect toe in toe out can also create havoc.
 
I agree it sounds like an alignment problem. The castor angle is the likely culprit but incorrect toe in toe out can also create havoc.
caster.....looking at the cam adjusters I can see that it doesnt look correct....they look like they are where i left them when I dropped off the car. makes me think he did the tierods only....which i know he did incorrectly because I hit the oil pan in a full right turn....
 
Oops thanks for correcting me. Beer and typing don’t go well together. In any event take it back or to somebody else who knows what they are doing.
 
Oops thanks for correcting me. Beer and typing don’t go well together. In any event take it back or to somebody else who knows what they are doing.
I didnt mean it as a correction...just a designation of which adjustment I was referring to in the coming statement. :) I dont know who does know what they are doing around me.
 
90 percent of the stuff out there these days have no or minimal caster and camber adjustments...so the usual 4 wheel alignment is find the thrust angle of the rear and set the toe...period...so try to find someone who has a clue...a couple years ago i needed new spring u bolts made up for a 1940 diamond t truck and wound up in Auto Spring co in winston salem...just a big old school heavy truck shop that looked like they could do damn near anything...obviously i never tried them for an alignment but they may be worth looking into...also point out to whoever is doing it that you just changed everything and its completely wacked out and doesnt just need a run of the mill alignment
 
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Get a refund from them. Then find a REAL alignment shop and go there.
 
I didnt mean it as a correction...just a designation of which adjustment I was referring to in the coming statement. :) I dont know who does know what they are doing around me.
No problem. I am a stickler for proper grammar so what I preach should apply to myself as well. Good luck getting it resolved.
 
90 percent of the stuff out there these days have no or minimal caster and camber adjustments...so the usual 4 wheel alignment is find the thrust angle of the rear and set the toe...period...so try to find someone who has a clue...a couple years ago i needed new spring u bolts made up for a 1940 diamond t truck and wound up in Auto Spring co in winston salem...just a big old school heavy truck shop that looked like they could do damn near anything...obviously i never tried them for an alignment but they may be worth looking into...also point out to whoever is doing it that you just changed everything and its completely wacked out and doesnt just need a run of the mill alignment
I actually specifically stated everything was new....said they could handle it and handed it to a 19yrold kid with a computer and said it would take about 30 mins.... smh...should have known. I had to get a ride home because they couldnt fix it that day afterall and spent 4 hours the next day working on it....then wanted to charge me more because it was more difficult than normal.
 
Somewhere, they should have a print-out of the "before" and "after" settings. Check them against the FSM settings. With radials, it's generally best to minimize the tow-in in the FSM specs (which were designed for bias-ply or bias-belted tires, depending upon the model year of production).

I'm suspected it's the tow-in that's out of whack. Either user error or machine error.

What tire pressure were the tires inflated to when it went to the alignment shop? Just curious.

Let us know what you discover,
CBODY67
 
As for pricing, IF they based their pricing on a late-model fwd car, with fewer potential adjustments, then taking longer might be a profitability issue for them. BUT, I've seen competent alignment techs flat-rate a car (in the '70s) in about 45 minutes, road test included. AND it worked well. BUT I also remember that Chilton Time for a '80s Caprice was in the 1 hr range, which usually could be done a bit quicker with a motivated tech (which we didn't seem to have back then). Whatever the GM labor guide listed, he used every second of that time. BTAIM

CBODY67
 
Sorry to hear about that. Sounds like you didn't get ahead, and they didn't make any money. A lose/lose situation. This is why alot of places won't even look at old car's. Here's a printout of my last alignment. Done by a professional. This car had the torsion bars dialed all the way up for over twenty years, and ten leaves per side on the rear, don't ask! After removing the extra leaves and replacing all the shocks, I brought it in, he told me I needed ball joints, so I put those in and brought it back. It's still not perfect, but given how bad it was, I'm happy with the job. And he charged me extra, because there was alot of extra adjusting.

IMG_20200516_062603.jpg
 
Sorry to hear about that. Sounds like you didn't get ahead, and they didn't make any money. A lose/lose situation. This is why alot of places won't even look at old car's. Here's a printout of my last alignment. Done by a professional. This car had the torsion bars dialed all the way up for over twenty years, and ten leaves per side on the rear, don't ask! After removing the extra leaves and replacing all the shocks, I brought it in, he told me I needed ball joints, so I put those in and brought it back. It's still not perfect, but given how bad it was, I'm happy with the job. And he charged me extra, because there was alot of extra adjusting.

View attachment 376408
That’s what I have received in the past.

Why the difference in caster from left to right? (0.68 vs 1.20 degrees)?
 
At speed the steering seems unresponsive for a moment in the wheel then kinda dives into the lane change a little quicker than I would expect. Any thoughts?
Yes!
KEY: "the steering seems unresponsive for a moment in the wheel then kinda dives into the lane change"

This problem consistently happened over my entire years in my company's fleet of semi-tractors at around the 250k mile mark. Years and years of returning our tractors to the shop for this problem was solved almost all the time by the shop repairing the steering box.

Sorry for the bad news but I'm damn sure it's in the box. I always dialed in maximum castor in the alignment of my C-bodies but it really never solved the problem.
 
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