Took my car for first alignment and inspection today. Few hours later, went to go pick it up and it didnt pass inspection because of a leaky wheel cylinder. On the way home to fix the problem, i heard screeching and realized it was my wheels. They really messed up on my alignment. I opened the wheel cylinder and cleaned it out and now i hope it stops leaking. I will take the car on monday and try inspection again and realignment. also i just replaced the brakes in the car. it has drum brakes. how much travel should the pedal have? it has quite a bit but stops good.

 

is the car power brakes?

 

no, not power brakes

 

the pedal shouldnt have too much travel
when you are sstopping the car, do you feel any pulsating?

 

no, no pulsating. they stop good, sometimes it even lock up the wheels real easy. Im just gonna replace the wheel cylinder.

 

if you lock up the wheels real easy, your regulating valve may be off

 

Im not too keen on doing an alignment on my car (having one done) unless I know that all the bushings and ball joints are in good condition, and here is the reason; an alignment shop will align yor car even if you have worn out components. Than a week later or whatever the alighnment will not stay in tolerance. It will change. This is especially true if your lower control arm bushings are bad or the strut rods bushings are bad. If you can find an old mechanic somewhere or a very good alignment shop that does old cars, they can tell you what components are worn out. Fix all the problems and then do the alignment. Some of the new mechanics dont know old cars even though they say they do.

 

2x on that
i need my wheels re-aligned, but i am waiting till i do the front end this summer

 

X3 but I do my own front ends. I can do "toe" but caster and camber are left to the pros. BTW, did you know that you can adjust casrter for your driving style? One way for straight line tracking, or another for cornering. Same with camber.

 

hmm, i didnt know that
i thought it was just one setting

 

Alignment descriptions (very casual definitions)

Toe: This is the easiest to understand and many already know. Front wheels pointed in = Toe in. Front wheels pointing out = toe out.

Camber: This is almost as easy and many people mistake this for the next setting. Basically, the tires leaning in versus out is negative and positive camber. When you go around a turn, the load on the front wheels will tend to make the wheel "roll" or "lean" over causing the contact patch to become smaller. If the wheel is set to lean in at the top, when you corner the inertia pushes the tire over such that the contact patch becomes bigger. The tire actually leans such that it is flat on the ground and provides better traction for cornering. Guys that do a lot of road racing or auto crossing will have a ton of camber set in the tires.

Caster: This is often the most difficult for some to understand. This adjustment is the angle or axis that the wheel pivots on. The spindle pivots on both the upper and lower control arms. If they were straight above one another there would be 0 (zero) caster. Picture a motorcycle. if the handlebars and the forks were straight up and down the bike would be very awkward to steer, conversely, on a chopper where the forks are holding the tire way, way out front, that would handle very differently. Picture the way the front tire on a bike turns. It is not straight nor is is (usually) like a chopper way out front with the axis leaning backwards. Somewhere in the middle is the right setting and that varies on the geometry of the suspension and driving habits as well. This is also where the tech can compensate for road crown.

Ok, I am not a teacher, but did anyone get this? or did I make it clear as mud.

 

pretty understandable, I changed out 1 wheel cylinder today and rebuilt the other. the reason for that is the bold to remove the cylinder is in a REALLY hard place to get any kind of tool in there, so I just took the guts from the new one, cleaned out the old cylinder and put in new guts. On the other side, the bleeder bolt was stripped so I had to take the cylinder off. I custom fabbed a tool and got it off. Brakes work good now so will go tommorow morning for realignment and inspection. hope all goes well.

 

have you checked all of your front end bushings yet?

 

took it to get realigned and inspected. The reason it wasnt aligned right the first time was because the upper control arm bushing broke and moved the wheel. They adjusted the wheel best they could and it passed inspection. First long drive in it today. Took it to the next town over (15 mins.) on the highway. Driving pretty good except a little wobbly. Went to jack in the crack and sat in line for like 20 mins and engine got really hot and when I left it died. restarted right up and drove and cooled her down.

 

I can't believe they aligned it with bad parts. You didn't pay for that did you? Like washing a busted windshield, CRAP!

 

C4C, you Explained it better than I could ever have. Thanks

 

when i drive it i hear a little squeak at low speeds and a clunk when changing gears. signs of bad u joint? How long do u joints usually last when their bad before they fail? has anyone ever had one fail on them? Is it very hard to replace it?

 

Please don't be offended, but it seems like everyday something else is squeaking, breaking or needs attention on your car. Maybe you should take the time to "nut and bolt" the entire car. Start at one end and go over everything and be sure parts are tight and not overly worn or broken. This will make for a much more dependable, enjoyable, and safer ride. If you are not knowledgeable enough, that's OK, we all start someplace. Just pay a professional a couple bucks to check everything. Even a complete hour of shop time should only cost $60-$70 bucks, and a pro should be able to look at everything in that amount of time. You don't have to have him fix anything that he finds but it will give you a place to start and you will know what you are working with. If you were local, I'd have you bring it over and me and a buddy of mine would look at everything for you, heck we'd probably fix stuff too, FREE! I don't doubt that you have guys in your neighborhood that would do the same thing. Good luck.

 

changed out both front and rear u joints today. alot easier than expected.