Don R.

I will be rebuilding the front end on my 63 Starfire and replacing all springs and shocks so will definitely need an alignment. I have the original bias ply specs in the shop manual, but I assume they should be different for radial tires? Has anyone gone through this with the big cars, can anyone advise specs that work well?

jaunty75

In all my born days, I've never heard of a second set of alignment specs for radial tires for cars that were built before radial tires came into common use. Your car was built about a decade before radials were found widely on cars. I doubt a second set of specs was ever created, and that's assuming a second set was ever needed.

I had a '64 Jetstar 88 back in the 1990s, and I put a set of radials on it. I just had it aligned by the local shop, and I presume they just used whatever was in their manual at the time. I never asked if the alignment was different for radials on this car. It never occurred to me to do so. I kept the car for five years after that, put about 15,000 miles on it in that time, and never had a problem.

I wouldn't worry about this. Get the car aligned by a reputable shop, and I doubt you would ever have a problem.

jaunty75

As another point of reference on this, I just now looked through the '73 Olds Chassis service manual. There is a lot of discussion of alignment and proper procedures and several charts, but there is not a single mention of alignment settings depending on what kind of tire is on the car.

By 1973, radials were becoming more common on cars, but bias-ply tires were still widely used as well. You would think that if the alignment settings ever differed depending on the type tire, a service manual from this era would mention it.

The manual does talk about the need to make sure the car is loaded properly when aligned. It gives as an example a situation where a heavy toolbox is normally carried in the car. "If this is the case, it should remain in the car during alignment process."