DIY wheel alignment gauge works good ! (archive)

I recently aligned the front end after installing a host of suspension components and decided not to pay $49.95 for a wheel alignment at my Sears. The e21 only has toe in and toe out corrections. Caster and camber changes aren't provided conventionally unless one installs the upper strut bearing adjustable mounts. Ditto for the rear - to my knowledge, there's no adjustments available for any corrections, from what I can tell. One would need to install a Korman or Dinan adjustable rear subframe to have adjustment capability.

I tried to align using the string method, but I didn't think that I went about it correctly. I kept getting shimmy at highway speed, pulling to one side, and turn-ins was loose and breaking away very early. So I bought a wheel alignment gauge, actually two gauges, and adjusted it again. To my amazement, I was off 1/2" toe-out! THe gauge got me back to within 1/16" toe in., which is the comfortable tradeoff for a DIY tool as The e21 spec is 1/32" toe in.

I thought I needed two gauges - one for the left wheel and one for the right wheel- if I didn't want to unfasten one side to measure the other side. But only one gauge is all that's required to do the entire alignment. The gauge works so well, I'll never go back to Sears again w/ my e21. I had a little interference when using the gauge's stand because of my BBS front spoiler being a hindrance, but w/out using the stand, it wasn't even a problem correcting the toe.

Try it, you'll like it.

Follow Ups:

Re: DIY wheel alignment gauge works good ! HAROLD320I 82 15:27 8/05/2001 (4)
- Re: DIY wheel alignment gauge - product info DHoang 15:44 8/05/2001 (3)
  - Where are you, Doug? MartyR 19:18 8/05/2001 (1)
    - Re: Where are you, Doug? DHoang 21:19 8/05/2001 (0)
  - Re: DIY wheel alignment gauge - product info DHoang 15:55 8/05/2001 (0)

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