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Driveway alignment.

spat70

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Orlando, FL
The past year I have have the front ends of xj's apart more times than I can count. I hate paying for alignments, and the tape measure method is a p.i.t.a and just a guess.

What Im thinking of building is a a home laser alignment jig. Using those cheap laser pointers from the gas station.

If you remove the wheels and put it on jackstands so its close to ride hight and bolt a piece of particle board to each rotor in place of the wheel. Affix the laser pointer to the board and come up with a way to make it shoot true to the board/wheel track.

Now start doing some math. Get the exact distance from the center of the lasers. Transfer that measurement to a 2x4. Find a person with some good math skills and find the distance from the center of the wheel to the 2x4 so you can have hash marks in 1/10 of a degree.

If might take 2 hours or so to build the jig and 15-20 bucks in materal.

But now you can set your toe and just look at the red dot on the board as your adjusting. Sound like an idea, or am I nuts?
 
I hate paying for alignments too. So when I bought my XJ new 11 years ago, I bought a life time alignment service from Expert Tire for $115. Free alignments (with no maximum per year), as often as I want them. Just bring the XJ in, show the agreement and I'm good. The place is just down the street from where I work, so I can drop it off in the morning, and pick it up at lunch.

They do a good job as they are aware of alignment shims (only needed them once). I can tinker with the front end all I want, then see what the results are. After 11 years worth of alignments, the service agreement has pretty much paid for itself many times over.

The manager still gets a chuckle whenever I come in as he knows me pretty well by now....
 
thats a pretty good idea ronbo and with that it's cheaper than his original plan of 15 dollars in material! you can buy a 20 foot stick of 5/8 x 5/8x .0625 square tubing for 7 dollars! so a 10 foot stick would be like 3 bucks :) and im pretty sure he has a tape measure and harbor freight would sell him clamps for super cheap too
 
Looks like running the tubing at the bottom of the rotor there is a nice clean shot across. That looks like the eaisest way to do it. I was hoping to play with the lasers but this is so simple.
 
I've never liked the idea of measuring from the tires so I have a pair of old wheels (without tires) that I bolt on for adjusting toe in. A 15" wheel with a pair of lugnuts holding it on provides a nice solid edge to measure from and it gets you out past the brakes and the tie rod. I measure from the outer lip on one wheel to the outer lip on the other, front and back, and compare the two.

You can run the tape just below the drag link in front of the wheel, and at the rear the tape measure fits nicely between the control arms and the pinion. You can also verify that your steering is pointing straight ahead for the alignment by ensuring that the tape falls evenly upon both the inner and outer lips of both wheels.
 
I am running the stock XJ steering on 4.5" of lift. Which means the toe changes as the suspension cycles, more than stock, due to crummy angles. If you set the toe with the suspension unloaded, then load it up, won't it toe out, potentially badly?

I guess I could at least do it wheels-off by putting the axle on jackstands, the suspension would be loaded.

Do they load your suspension in the shop?
 
I jack the front axle up until the tires are just barely off the ground, remove the wheels, put jack stands in place under it, and then lower it back to ride height. I figure this keeps the suspension loaded just as it would be if sitting on the tires.
 
I've never liked the idea of measuring from the tires so I have a pair of old wheels (without tires) that I bolt on for adjusting toe in. A 15" wheel with a pair of lugnuts holding it on provides a nice solid edge to measure from and it gets you out past the brakes and the tie rod. I measure from the outer lip on one wheel to the outer lip on the other, front and back, and compare the two.

You can run the tape just below the drag link in front of the wheel, and at the rear the tape measure fits nicely between the control arms and the pinion. You can also verify that your steering is pointing straight ahead for the alignment by ensuring that the tape falls evenly upon both the inner and outer lips of both wheels.

How do you account for tire size?
 
Well. That 45 min of my life was well worth it. Jacked up the front and put it on 2 jackstands. Used aluminum gutter mount roof racks and clamped them to the rotors with c clamps. Quick measurement and I had mad toe out, couple of twists and I got it to 1/16" of toe, measuring 15" from the hub.

I loosened up the rod from the steering box and went for a slow drive down the street. Stopped twice to center the steering wheel and got perfectly centered.

I was so proud of myself I figured I would try and balance one tire I had that was out.
I popped out the center cap and ran a rope from the celing. Threaded the rope through a funnel and then the center of the wheel. The wheel would always fall to the same side. I then went to my pile of old rims behind the shed and grabbed all of the wheel weights.

I placed the weight on the high side and after about 2-3 min of tinkering I got the wheel to stay level. So I weighed the weight /2 and place the correct weight on the inside and outside.

I went for a test drive and @ 75 not a single vibration and it drove in the center of the lane for 1/2 a mile without touching the wheel.

Total cost....45 min of my time. I would have spent more waiting at a shop.
Is the balancing perfect? I duoubt it, but I dont feel a thing.

It sure was a crude setup but....for free, Im stoked.
 
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