johnshenry
Samba Member
Joined: September 21, 2001
Posts: 9408
Location: Northwood, NH USA
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 Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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Well first, if the existing drivetrain is in place and thought to be set up correctly, mark the position of the bearing housings on the axles relative to the spring plate, and put axles back in that same position.
If it is not in place or correct, I would take measurements before you tighten it all up again. One way is to spin the wheels and spray a light strip of white paint on the tread. Then spin them again and use a nail to scribe a line in the white paint. Then measure the distance between the lines at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions (front and back) and get them equal. This will set up toe pretty close.
If the body is off the chassis, this relatively easy, but if the body is on you have to get creative and make some "caliper" type tools to reach up to the front and back facing edges of the tread, as you do not have straight line access between them. Make sense? Actually, you may not have straight line access between the treads on the back edge even with the body off, the engine will be in the way.
That will set up toe, but will not really set up track. If your track is way off, you could get toe right, but the car will "dogleg" down the road. For this, measure and compare the axle center (or drum edge of the wheel is off) with some other fixed point along the side of the chassis, like the torsion tube. Don't use the front wheels because you don't know the steering is perfectly straight ahead.
That is just how I have done it, it seems to work pretty well. There may be other methods/techniques, and in fact you can google them as the measurements should really be no different on other cards.
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John Henry
'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab |
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