[Brandi Kay]

They did the allignment, but when i rutn off exits on the highways it grinds, same in taking a right or left at a light on the street.


when going straight its good.


Im taking it back there forst thing tomorow morning.

Whats specs should i know, camber, caster toe in and toe out so not as to appear ignorant?


they told me the car turns a bit to the left because my springs are uneven and the front is lower then the back.


is that insanity or truth?

[Bad Karma]

How high is it in the back? Both my 72 lemans had a low rider back Finally got a good set of springs from MOOG. Heavy duty for a convertable to get an even ride hieght.My cars a coupe.

It doesnt sound right what they said to me anyway. Was it town fair tire by chance? They really hurt my first lemans horrible! I just re did the ENTIRE Front end with all new EVERYTHING in polygraphite new ball joints springs end links center links sway bar yaddda yadda. Brought it to town fair tire to get it aligned since I had new tires and aluminum 17 inch rims. A day later I checked the oil and saw they had pulled a bushing thru on the top of the A ARM trying to align the car. I was assed out since I didnt inspect the car right after they did the alignment.

[Skip Fix]

Body style?
"Generally" for radials 1/16 toe in, 0-0.5 negative camber(more if you alot of cornering) and at least 2-3 degress positive caster, as much positve caster as there is once you get the camber.

[Brandi Kay]

ok, i have 15 inch rims and 255 60 15 on the bask and 235 60 15 on the front


they said because of that and a spring at a diffrent height make my car turn left


and when i turn hard left or right i hear a grinding sound and the front end grinds as well.

[Brandi Kay]

opps its a GM a body...71 lemans

[scottk]

grinding is not alignment. you have a problem in the ft end. maybe its just the tires rubbing, or it could be a bearing going bad or something else... hard to hear from here

the rake (rear higher than front) should not cause a pull, but uneven left/right height could.

the majority of pulls are caused by tires. try swapping left and right to see if it quits pulling or pulls the other way. this is not to say your alignment is correct. it is just a tire check.

many other things can cause a pull... too many to list. the alignment has to be pretty severely out to cause a pull.

the specs often call for an extra 0.25 degrees of positive camber on the left to compensate for the crown of the road. This could cause a left drift when on a flat road or right lane highway. a drift is not as severe as a pull. a drift requires repeated driver input to compensate. a pull means you have to hold the wheel against the pull all the time.

i dont know the year or model of your car but the above specs are very useable for most of the cars on this board. caster on a manual steer car should be a bit lower for low speed steering.

caster pulls to negative, and camber pulls to positive.
toe does not pull, but low or negative toe will make a pull more noticeable.

Always Get A Printout of the alignment angles before and after. the shop should provide one without you asking for it.

[Grand73Am]

I agree with SkipFix above. I recently took my low mileage 75 Lemans Sport in for alignment. It has the same front suspension as firebirds do. It's all original, only 62,500 miles and the front end is still tight. I've had it several years and knew the alignment could use improvement. So I took it in to a local Midas that had done a good job for me in the past with similar specs that SkipFix listed. I wanted 0 degrees camber, 3 degrees positive caster and 1/8" total toe-in, or as close as possible. They spent 2 days working on it, coming up with one excuse after another why they couldn't get the adjustment I wanted. They were incompetent. Finally, they said they were done, but it now pulled to the right, which it didn't before. I gave up on them and took it to NTB, who had it done and driving straight in an hour. The NTB guy was able to get 3 1/2 degrees positive caster, which was a little better that I hoped for. I see you have a 71, so don't know if you can get that much, but 2 or 2 1/2 isn't bad either.
I always ask the alignment guy to give me a printout of the specs before he works on it, so I can see what it was. And then give me the printout of the specs after the alignment to see how he did and what I wind up with.
So based on my experience, if I were you, I'd try a different shop before believing that something wrong with your car is the reason they can't align it.

[Brandi Kay]

thanks guys


i feel better knowing more about it now