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  1. #1
    Established Member Two Rings
    Join Date
    Nov 22 2014
    AZ Member #
    296898
    My Garage
    1960 Corvette
    Location
    Norway

    DIY Wheel alignment

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    I tried doing the wheel alignment myself. Last year I overhauled an 5hp19fla automatic transmission and replaced. While doing that I completely removed the subframe and replaced all the stuff in the front suspension. The new ball joints on the steering rack was a bit different than the ones that was on, so the measurements where a bit wrong. A visible toe out, drove okay, but sort of wandered a bit more than before.

    Car info: 2000 A6 avant Quattro 2.7T, 1BA = Standard suspension/shock absorption, 282000km(175000miles)

    Here the other day I replaced the inner tie rod on the steering, and did an alignment.
    This is why i replaced the inner tie rods: https://youtu.be/22xik4Ovue0 moves very easy, bot couldn't feel any movement. (they where not part of the meyle kit i used when replacing all the rest)

    I put the car on the garage floor, ligned up to strings of sewing thread and tried to get the car as parallell as I could with the strings.

    First, some rough adjustment:

    and after rough adjustment:


    The inner tie rods where a bit different from the original(the clamp on the booth didn't hold, so used some cable ties), cheap from JP group, let's see how long they last.


    Stringing process:


    Measurement, on front and back side of the rim:


    Measurements:


    Formula for calculating the angles:


    Since the rim is 500mm long, and with my measurements of 1mm different on the front, and 2mm on the back, it gives:

    1mm = 0.11 degree
    2mm = 0.23 degree

    Toe in front according to bentley: +0.11+-0.02 degree

    As seen on the measurement, the rear is pointing a bit to the right in the same direction, the car wasn't perfect parallell to the strings, but as close as I bothered taking it. The measurements on the centre of the wheels are taken from the string to the heads of the wheel bolts.
    May need to adjust the rear.

    Also, I didn't measure the lengt bethween the wheels on each side, going to do that also sometime, to check if the subframe in the front is a bit rotated.

    The camber was 0.7 degree on the left front, and 0.4 degree on the front right, which is within spec, but indicates that the subframe should be shifted a bit to the right. (0.5+-0.25 is spec)

    Conclusion: it is no problem doing the alignment yourself, by measuring the difference on the front and back of the rim, if the difference is 0.5mm you have 0.057 degree.

    Any hints or tricks or inputs?
    And, how much difference is there in the witdh of the wheels on the front and back axis? Found this on some site: front trail:1540mm, rear trail: 1569mm, difference: 29mm, I got: 11mm.

  2. #2
    Veteran Member Four Rings MugelloB7RS4's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 06 2015
    AZ Member #
    313804
    Location
    Toronto

    We do alignments at the track for race cars pretty often and I think you're on the right track.

    It might even be more simple than you have it. For us, the best way to square the strings is to base it off of the wheel hubs. In your case the 59mm and 57mm in the front and the 53mm and 52mm in the rear. Our goal is to have the fronts equal left to right and rears equal left to right. Keep your overall width at 1807mm or whatever it is, but if the hub measurements are equal the set up should be square provided the car is square. Pop off center caps of the wheels and you should have a more or less flat flange to butt your ruler up against.

    So for example we would have set up the fronts so that the measurement to the hubs would have been 58mm on both sides. This might have brought the back to 52.5mm on each side.

    Once that is done, we measure to the front and rear of the wheel like you seem to have. We use mm and leave it at that. We don't worry about changing back and forth to degrees. So if we have 1mm toe in and we want 3mm, we add 2mm. Its alot easier with 2 guys, one on each side. Once everything is set up we can measure the car in a matter of minutes.

    The kicker is when aligning toe, for alot of the Audi's anyway, the steering rack and adjustment for tierods is pretty high meaning you need to jack the car, likely remove the wheel, adjust, put wheel back on, measure again. Its a long tedious process but if you don't have any other options it's definitely doable.

  3. #3
    Established Member Two Rings
    Join Date
    Nov 22 2014
    AZ Member #
    296898
    My Garage
    1960 Corvette
    Location
    Norway

    I could have to equal length planks with poles on for easier parallelling of the car, moving 4 corner post are timeconsuming. Sliding a plank in the front and one in the back is less consuming.

    Removing of the centercup haven't I thought of, nice input, tried measuring on the top, but with the audi rings sticking out it's more inacurate. So I used the head of the bolts, but removing the centre cup would be much better!

    On this car i managed to adjust the toe one the tie rods with the car sitting on it's wheels, just a bit tight, If you can't get your hands in there this method would be a weekend job..
    -----------------------------------------------
    2000 Audi A6 Avant 2.7T Quattro
    1960 Chevrolet Corvette

  4. #4
    Veteran Member Four Rings
    Join Date
    Sep 11 2009
    AZ Member #
    47633
    Location
    NE

    I took two galvanized pipes and drilled holes for nails at precisely the same distance which gives me attachment points for strings, from there I square these very precisely with a large right angle ruler (right angle between strings and pipes) and then to the car (I pop the caps off and measure to hub bolt) and adjust toes. I aim at pretty much 0 degrees.

    I wanted to use wood but decided against that as lumber is not dimensionally stable long term (bowing ,moisture content etc). With ~1900mm length needed of pipes/planks and angle tolerances running out of specs once that length changes by a mere 1-2mm (which is 0.05% of total length!), lumber is a totally wrong material for this task. Steel though is good so long both pipes are used at the same temperature which is the only factory affecting its length.

    Once I am squared like this I can tell the state of rear thrust angle too and also any crazy stuff that might be going on with track width / squareness of the car.

  5. #5
    Registered Member One Ring
    Join Date
    Jun 20 2016
    AZ Member #
    374919
    Location
    lillehammer

    there is no need to put up this square thing with sticks tubes and planks.
    start by reading the factory specs in elsa win.
    than its clear that the specs for your car are 10` +/- 2` per wheel , thats 1,45mm toe in per wheel ,maybe you are a little off because 10`(minutes) is 1/6 part of a minute and not 0,1 degree


    measure the wheelbase left and right , should be 2758mm for this car.
    than measure the car diagonally from a lower ballpoint to something rigid on the subframe (need a helper)
    if both measurements are the same the car is square , if not > something is bent / worn out.

    The front and back track of most our quattro`s is not square , its trapezium !!
    for this car the front track is 1542 mm the back is 1565 mm
    thats 23mm diff. , so the string has to be 23/2=11,5mm further of the front hub than back !!!! to measure toe correctly .

    just use an elastic (nylon) fishing line tight between 2 jackstands . put the front line 11,5 mm further of the front hub and measure correctly.
    you see on the measuring results 52,53,57,59 that squaring did not work !!

    now i have a question: these cars have an s-curve adjustment on the outer steering knuckles (the little 13mm m8 screw)
    i think in the states you call it bump steer.

    for sailor83 car this is the data 7` +/- 2` like most 4bc5 platforms and i think its over a car height difference of 60 mm
    should it be in, the toe in , or toe out direction ??

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