Arrowstorm

Hi guys.

So after hearing this "clunking" sound in the front end and getting under there to see that my steering linkage was probably about 43 years old, I ordered all new parts for steering linkage and also got new ball joints on the advice of my brother in law after seeing that the passenger side upper joint was almost non-existent.

We took a Saturday before I was to leave for vacation and started to inspect the passenger side ball joint when my brolaw discovered that the control arm was missing it's forward bushing. There's the clunk!! Lol

So we replaced that. (Man, that hour and a half of sweaty work condensed into four words really hurts!)

We did the ball joints and mounted the new steering linkage and the next business day, it was off to the most "reputable" alignment shop in my town.

The guy might have had a good work reputation, but his personality left MUCH to be improved upon. He took the car and told me it would be ready by the time I got off work the next day. Next day I called and it wasn't ready, so he told me it would be ready before they close. Got close to closing time so I called and he said he was staying open an extra hour and it would be ready by closing time. Got close to closing time again and I had heard nothing, so 10 minutes before they closed, and after my ride had been farting around for 2 hours, the guy told me, "I just took it off the rack, come get it." ::click::

Something tells me they didn't take it for a test drive.

So..... I went to go get it. That's when he told me about my passenger side tire was coming apart and about the 2.5 hrs he spent aligning the vehicle and hit me with bill for 125 bones. I didn't care, I was just happy that I had all new steering and once I got a newer tire, it should drive straight as an arrow.

Except... it didn't. It pulled to the right. HARD. Even after the newer tire.

This car never did that. It had a slight pull to the right that would slowly drift if I let go of the wheel, but after the steering replacement and all, it pulls HARD. Like.. I could take a right hand curve in the road without touching the wheel.

My question is... did this "reputable" guy mess up? Did he not do something right? I did get the impression that he just didn't give a crap about my car and wanted me to get the hell out of there.

Or should I switch the front tires around and see if maybe it's an unbalanced tire?

If it is possible that the guy just didn't do the alignment right, how do you approach a guy like that? Just bring the car in and say, "Hey look, you did an alignment on this car 2 weeks ago and I drove it to Florida and back and it was a hard pull the entire time, fix it."?

Is it possible he did the alignment right but we messed up with the steering and ball joints? That stuff is pretty straight-forward, I thought. Brolaw is a diesel mechanic and has been around cars his whole life. Even when I got the linkage in, I put it together and kind of matched the tie-rod lengths to the original stuff, but the alignment guy would have adjusted any error I might have (probably) made, right?

Any thoughts?
Buz

oldcutlass

Do you know what settings they used to align the car?

Arrowstorm

I'll be honest. The guy was quite unpleasant, when he handed me a handwritten receipt for the job, I was glad to get the keys and leave. Most of the notes on the receipts talk about having to shim the passenger side quite a bit. I'll (try to) read it again when I get home today.

Arrowstorm

He did mention that he took a while to get it "to specs"....

MDchanic

Sounds like a jerk.

Personally, I would doubt his abilities and the quality of his work, consider the money "lost," and go somewhere else (where they will probably tell you exactly what he did wrong, which he never will).

You should have gotten a written sheet from him listing the old settings and the new settings.
That's completely standard policy.

First thing I would do, though, is look at the upper control arm shims on both sides, on both the front and rear bolts - They are harder to keep in place when there are a lot of them, and you may have lost a stack of them on the road.
You can use a crowbar to push the control arm away from the frame as far as possible, measure the space, buy new shims at NAPA to add up to that distance, and re-install them yourself.

- Eric

onetogofast

One other thing to consider is before the new parts if the tire woar a little funny could be causing this. Try to rotate the right side tires and see if it stops.

Arrowstorm

Eric,

They're still there. The shims he used let the bolt pass thru it. I know that because he left a couple on the inside of the fender just sitting there.

Hey... perhaps those are a couple he forgot to add?!

Buz

MDchanic

I'm not sure what you mean, but I don't like the way it sounds.

Pictures?

- Eric

joe_padavano

The alignment equipment registers off the wheel/hub, not the tire, so if there's a problem with one tire, this would not have been picked up in an alignment. Definitely swap the front tires and see if the problem swaps sides. If it does, it's tire time. If not, the alignment is bad.

Frankly, given how simple the front end adjustments are on the A-body cars, I can't see how it could take that long to align the front end, unless this person is only experienced with newer cars that use cam adjusters as opposed to shims. Obviously caster and camber adjustments are related and changing one can change the other, but an experienced alignment person would know that and account for it.

MDchanic

Even an inexperienced person can get most of that from that elaborate chart in the CSM.

- Eric

oldcutlass

Ask around and find an alignment shop that knows how to set older cars. I've found that none of the big franchise places can do it. I've had great success with heavy truck or privately owned small alignment shops. Its not necessary to do a 4 wheel alignment on these cars.

biggus

For $125. you could have bought your own caster camber gauge and did it yourself, not hard. I did mine in about 3 hrs. I can let go of the wheel at freeway speed and not worrying about it putting me in a ditch. Try it, not hard at all.

MDchanic

$125? I didn't realize they were so cheap. Post a link?

- Eric

m371961

Like MD says, where can I get one?

biggus

Not computer savy, don't know how to do the links thing. But I did look it up. longacreracing.com. $129.90, with magnetic adapter which fit my SSII wheels, #78260. With the GM 3/4×20 adapter is #78262.

RandyS

I took my Red 66 to a small local shop after I rebuilt the front end. Mature gentleman was familiar with A-Body's. Took the guy about 15 - 20 min to align the front end and center the steering wheel. $45.00 Drives perfect. (Scared the crap out of him when he test drove it, he about turned it around when he got it out in the street......lol)

MDchanic

They have a number of hone-alignment tools, but it looks to me that the cheapest you could get away with is the pair of toe-plates for $60 (though you could make them yourself, with a bit of skill - They've also got others for up to $300), and a caster / camber gauge with a GM fitting, which I assume threads onto the end of the spindle, for $130, which would, of course, only fit GM cars. There is also a magnetic-mount caster / camber gauge for $135, which seems to be the same exact thing that used to be part of the old wheel-alignment systems.





Overall, it looks like you could get a reasonable set of alignment tools, which should do a basic alignment on most cars, for about $200, provided you have a smooth, level surface to work on, but this is without a pair of slip plates, which are kind of necessary to be sure that you have the suspension settled, and which they sell for $700. I have heard of people making slip plates out of greased smooth metal, but this does not help you get your specific amounts of turn angle measured.

- Eric

Lady72nRob71

I used the SPC Fasttrax caster/camber gauge and fabbed up my own toe measurement bars. I paid 135 and it did the job well. After 2500 miles, still drives arrow straight.
Here it is in action...
https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...tml#post332393

classicmuscle442

Find someone that actually knows what there doing, $45 bucks sounds about right, maybe a local frame shop.

Arrowstorm

Well, I switched the front tires yesterday and took it down the road and it seemed to drive straight, although with an EVER so slight drift to the left. I didn't get to drive it out to the highway to give it a real test, but I will either today or tomorrow.

Does that mean it's just the tires then?

Guess this guy might probably do good work if that's the case, but man, his character could sure use an alignment. Lol

Buz

Fun71

Yes, worn tires can cause the car to pull to the side.

biggus

I don't have any turnplates. I have 4 pieces of 12x12x .040 aluminum with a squirt of grease between two then the other one placed on the grease. These under the front tires keep everything free. I sometime roll the car off then back on. With the caster the trick is to get as much as possible and get both side the same. The two angles on the outside corners of the gauge are a 20° reference, make these parallel to the car and you'll be close. I just do 1 1/2 turns of the wheel out, set the gauge 3 turns the other way and take your reading. Caster first then camber.

MDchanic

Interesting. Sounds cool.

I may have to get a set of those things.

- Eric

kitfoxdave

On the 72 Cutlass convertible there is a slight difference between drivers side and passengers side in the specs... it is not a lot, maybe he did them both the same? Not sure if it is the same way on the Vista... I had that issue and brought the car back with a copy of the specs and they fixed it up, worked fine after that.

Lady72nRob71

I have had several experiences of mis-wearing tires causing pulling. I often treat that as an indication that I need a rotation......

oldsguybry

I may have to get one of these down the road .