Manual steering alignment

Whatcha. Tomorrow Spare Jimny is going in for an alignment as it's pulling the outside corner of the passenger tyre to bits. I'm half reliably informed that mother smote it against a pot hole. At speed. Anyway it's going to my preferred tyre place this time but its got me thinking given the simplicity of the alignment on the jimny and the lack of rear adjustment does it make sense to look at buying one of those tape measure tools that bolt onto the wheel flanges and give you the clearance to measure the relative length in front and behind the axle to determine toe as a linear measure. They're usually two large flat plates with notches to support the 2 tape measures. It's just that given the state of the roads this is likely not the last time I might need to check the wheels are still pointing in the same direction. 

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This sort of thing. 

Absolutely. Literally the only "adjustable" thing for the alignment is the tierods.

I say "adjustable" as I have straightened rear axles for a customer of ours who has built a competition style Disco1. He came down hard on the axle housing / diff pumpkin and managed to bend it slightly. As he also uses it for touring, and his tyres are expensive, he wanted it straight again. Chains, a hydraulic press and heat bought it back to spec. We've since converted nissan patrol axles for it.

So if its more than just a tierod adjustment on a jimny its not something your average alignment shop could fix anyway, but at least they will tell you how far off it is.

Yeah it only doing it to the front passenger side is slightly worrying as there is no independent action to each wheel. I'll see what is said later.

Never seen those brackets before, but you could easily make some up with a piece of angle iron or ally. I bet some old dexion shelving stuff would be ideal?

I did "alignment" on my SJ myself after it went from 195-80-15 to 325-60-15 tyres. This car was a bit lifted so access was easy,
I painted a part of the tyre thread white.
I took a piece of board/plank and put two nails thru it spaced apart so i could make marks in the white paint at the rear of the front tyres.
Then rolled the car fwd to see how much toe-in there was as the distance between the marks changed, and adjusted so i got approx 2 degrees of toe-in.
Calculated this from the top of my head and a drawing and basic school geometry.
Made my wobble situation much better, and car felt good to drive after.

I dont remember where I got the tip or the figure from then..

Of course I can not recommend this procedure to anyone as there are way too many ways to mess it up like this

Soeley wrote:

Never seen those brackets before, but you could easily make some up with a piece of angle iron or ally. I bet some old dexion shelving stuff would be ideal?

Yes I suppose I could but then I wouldn't have another shiny new thing to play with!

Well it seems to be a teachable moment. Spare Jimny is in need of a new track rod end apparently. So it would appear that having the facility to assess and then coarsely adjust the tracking at home and then send it in for laser adjustment with everything freed off is the future. I suspect that had I found a stuck thread having the time to take it off the car and work it on bench could have saved the new joint. Still it is what it is and while I don't like it paying for someone else's time it's not like someone has been hurt as a result of ignoring the issue.

If you are looking for toys......(no idea if this is any good)

www.trackace.co.uk/

Reading the article, he is at least honest about its limitations

Lambert wrote:

Well it seems to be a teachable moment. Spare Jimny is in need of a new track rod end apparently. So it would appear that having the facility to assess and then coarsely adjust the tracking at home and then send it in for laser adjustment with everything freed off is the future. 

Generally speaking this can be done by counting the number of turns - loosen the lock nut and count the number of turns required to remove the rod end from the tie-rod, and then screw the replacement rod end in the same number of turns - you'll get it close enough that you can drive to the alignment center without difficulty.

Even when toe is the only adjustment possible, having a four wheel alignment check done allows you to detect worn or damaged suspension components.

Well it's going to be tomorrow now. Apparently they sent the wrong tre this morning and can't get a left hand one till tomorrow. And somehow it's needing a new lock nut too. At least I'm being looked after by the garage. And to be fair the last time I had to do this to my previous jimny it ended up with a completely new rod assembly so one tre and nut is winning?

As for doing things the most primitive way, that's not my preferred path, I aspire to a properly equipped building with ramps and the tool truck on speed dial . And yes I am aware that I could have built a unit with what I have spent on tools thus far but TOOL GOBLIN LIKE SHINY!!! Ooh I need that on a shirt!

The trackace looks good for the money.

I still use an ancient optical gauge that is older than me, that works the same way, you put the two probes on opposite sides of the wheelrims both sides, then peer into a telescope at the reflection of  the target in a mirror on the opposite gauge and adjust the angle of the telescope until the cross hair aligns with the target and read off the scale.

The trackace measures the angle between the gauges by the spot moving along the card.

Neither one compensates for wheel size when they claim to measure toe in mm (inches in my case, it is probably pre-1791!), but they are "near enough" for our purposes.