I know what you mean,Shakiro.. Had a grass hut 4 wheel align my Passat in
the nether parts of Brasil,
with string, etc.  It worked okay.

By the way, by daugher in law is from Cavite (or Cabite)..  Are you near
there?

.

Not in this little town to the east of you, Rex.  Costs $48 in an
independent
shop which I have used several times with good results.

True with Sears. Got two new radials and an alignment. 10,000
miles later the right side tire had innermost tread worn bald.

Basically you need to set up references to the car, I use
two exactly parallel strings, one on either side of the car,
strung tightly between two pieces of conduit, one at each
end of the car, set at axle centerline height on four
jackstands. Meauring from the string to the centerline
of the car or centerline of the front and rear suspensions,
I get the strings perfectly parallel to each other and with
the car centered between them.

Beforehand, I jack up each wheel individually, keeping the
weight of the car on the suspension, and spin the wheel,
using chalk against the center of
the tread to make a mark around 1/4" wide all the way around
the circumference of the tire. Then, I use a scribe resting
against a jackstand to make a very thin line in the middle
of the chalk by spinning the wheel again. To test that the
scribe line is planar, I spin the wheel yet again and observe
the mark in reference to a fixed object placed adjacent to
the tire tread. If the mark wavers or moves at all then I
rechalk and rescribe. With practice I get it the first time
nine out of ten times. The human eye is capable of seeing
one thousandth's of an inch movement relative to another
non-moving object, that's close enough for an alignment.

Next, I jounce the suspension while
rolling the car forward and backward. This settles out the
suspension. From there, taking measurements for toe to the
scribe marks is easy, with a tape measure marked in 16ths
you can easily get 1/32" resolution by interpolating. To
check camber I use a cheapie camber guage from Sears that
I calibrated against a known perfectly vertical surface.
Now, the cheap guages are only marked in whole degrees, and
with interpolation about the best to expect is 1/2 degrees,
but for the cars I drive that have a tolerance band one
degree wide this is perfectly fine.

Checking castor is a bit more complex, you'll need turn or
swivel plates because what you do is measure the camber change
as the wheel is turned and then calculate the castor from that.
For turn plates I use two pieces of 1/4" steel 12" on a side for
each wheel, with grease between the two plates. This allows the
top plate to slide/rotate against the bottom plate fairly
easily. I used a protractor to verify that I turn the wheels
the same degrees relative to the centerline of the car in each
direction, generally 20° each way from straight ahead. You'll
find the formula on this page: http://quadesl.com/miata_alignment.shtml

There's nothing inherently better with a machine alignment over
doing it yourself. What the machines do is to allow a technician
to align many cars in one day, very quickly, do all the calculations
automatically with no risk of calculation error, and be able to
automatically print out before and after spec sheets. The machines
are wonderful for increasing productivity in the shop, but alignments
were being done long before computers ever existed. A DIY alignment
can be just as good for the tires and handling of a car as a machine
alignment, but it will take many hours to do and every step should be
double checked to reduce the chance of error. The reason I do my own
is because it's a learning experience, I can do it when I have time
rather than rearranging my schedule to fit a shop's hours of business,
and because I enjoy working on my car.

JazzMan

"« Paul »" <"« Paul »"@houston.rr.com> wrote in message

There used to be a really good frame shop out on Wallisville Road that could
align just about anything.  They had machines big enough to straighten 18
wheelers,
trailers, etc.  Virgil was one of the better mechanics.

Don't know if they are still there, but will have a look at the phone book
in case
you might need them in the future.

Were not expensive either.

There WAS a really good shop in Houston, and I hope it is still there.  I'll
look the next time I drive
down (within the next couple of weeks, most likely).