In this video I straighten out a customers '66 Ford Mustang. He is the original owner of it and has recently removed a lowering kit that was in it and needs it realigned after rebuilding the front suspension. This is a little bit of a challenge for me because I am not use to aligning this style upper control arm with body shims. Either way we got it goin straight and the customer is super happy.
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Is this what they mean by manual labor folks? When we've got a car sold, we have to break out the book from 1966. it's a Ford Mustang A guy wants me to do a wheel alignment on it. Of course the alignment computer only goes back to the 80s, so we've got the specs here in the book. I'm typing them in, we'll grab the car, we'll bring it in.
Evidently, you guys own the car since new and I had since restored it apparently I had a lowering kit in it at one point. Now he put it back to where it was and now we've got to put it back to where it should be. Okay I think so There she is, folks. 1966 Ford Mustang I Don't know much about it.
Not a big old car guy, but this one seems to be pretty. Tastefully Done. It's not all rigged up with a bunch of aftermarket crap dangling out of the dash and house wiring and toggle switches. It seems pretty cool.
It looks like a factory radio in there. got the attack and the clock. Pretty sweet. Got a big Chrome engine since 289 on the valve cover.
Is it really? I'm not sure, but it sounds good. Sounds like it's got a bit of a stall converter in it. Pulling up on the lift sounds pretty healthy. Cool car.
Anyhow, let's get after it. uh Caster Camber is adjustable on this via the upper controller. She's kind of old school uses these body shims which I don't have what I do now. Had the guy pick me up a pack of them just because we don't use these and ever and all the measurements I've entered into the computer in degrees via the book.
There was a spec sheet in here I don't know which page but I entered the specs for Cancer, Camber, and then Total Toe. One thing we need to know which is great to have service data so that's the service manual for this baby is the conversion for caster and Camber So here's our adjuster on the upper control arm on this guy. But what we're going to do is we're going to get a measurement here, but it's going to be in degrees and we need to know the diff or how to calculate. You know, inches to degrees and how much of a degree of change does it make at each given point because I think we have to pull the wheel off to even do this I looked under and I can't even see the controller I'm not pulling the wheel but it does give us a spec here for making Caster adjustments.
It says here that a 1 32nd inch change of shim thickness that either bolt will change the Caster angle one half degree. Um, so that's good to know and equally good to know is with the camber here: A 1 16 inch change the shim thickness at both bolts. We'll change the camber 1 3 degree. So Camber! We're going to change both of the bolts in the upper control arm to change the camera obviously.
and then Caster will be doing just one or the other to make it more positive or negative. So now that we're armed with a little information, let's get some initial readings on this thing. Thank you! Foreign. Let's get our initial readings here.
Foreign. Okay So we've got to make some huge adjustments. Um I don't know what he has in there for shims currently. Um I do I think I read here it indicated I Think there was supposed to be two eighth inch shims or something. Looks like the struts are hooked to the upper control arm so we're gonna Jack it up, leave the suspension hanging. Uh, we're gonna take and pull the left front wheel off and see what we can do. The nuts for the bolts are on the inside of the body. It doesn't look like it's going to be super fun.
It's probably gonna be time consuming. I'm gonna make sure our Theory here is going to work before. I Make camber and Caster adjustments all in one shot. It's like change of plans.
I Ended up moving the jack up on the control arm here because when the suspension hangs, you can't even see those bolts in the bottom of the upper control arm. so it's gonna be kind of difficult. I'm working by myself today. Uh, Josh is off.
You may have to have Mrs O come out and help. Um I'm going to have to try to get a weasel wrench up in there to hold the bottom of these while somebody gets under the hood and loosens the nut under the hood. I've changed our adjustment screen I set the car back down and I redid our compensation and I'm in an elevated adjust mode so this allows me hopefully if we don't have to pull the wheel to make live adjustments. so let's give it a try.
I'll tell you this doing a wheel alignment on a modern day car is 1000 times easier than one of these. I Know a lot of guys you know say you know they want no car because you know any Ding Dong can work on them. but I'll I'll take some advancements in technology over some of this just because I mean yeah I mean the principles are the same, but boy. Centric Cams are real nice folks.
real nice. We're gonna work up here on the ladder. The bolts are right down here. I've loosened the rear here with three quarter inch wrench I'm able to reach in without without the bolt turning which is kind of amazing I don't think they're welded to the control arms.
it must have enough pressure on it that it's not moving. So I've got the rear loose which technically to make our degrees of change to negative, we loosen that one and you can see that does bring our Caster in. Now we have to have you know, 1.6789 Yeah, 1.9 degrees. A positive change on camber.
So we should be able to, uh, stick our shim in there. Which what did I write down? Yeah, 1 32nd is a half a degree. So technically our Caster on that side, we moved it about a half a degree. We should be able to stick a 132nd shim in the back.
But being that we're doing a live adjustment here, Um, I think we'll also get after the camber if we can. It'll start with that by loosening the front one because both of these are going to have to go out to gain a positive change in the camber. So let's see. I don't know if it's moving that thread.
no that Bolt's staying stationary too. So that's going to make some adjustments here and you're going to see. Yeah, it's going to affect our camber in a negative way. So I'm going to work on loosening these up, see if we get the control arm loose, and then hopefully get her kind of set where we need to get our shims in there and get it snugged up. So I'm kind of curious here. You know it has two different length bolts. Our rear bolt I have just about to the end and that's as far as I can go with it obviously. AR front bolt has lots of threads.
same on this side. over here you can't see it. but I believe he has the front bolts. well I know they're about the same length over here roughly and maybe you have to put a different bolt in this side here, but that's going to limit our adjustment.
I'm right to the end of that and I've got them both loose. I say working off the ladder here I'm going to get under there and move the control arm and we're going to get our camber as close as we can. So with that rear one being loose, we need to loosen the rear and the front and move this control arm out as far as we can. And then we're going to adjust our Caster with our front bolt is what's ultimately going to happen.
This thing's a huge pain. so I'm able to reach up in here with a little pry bar and get the control arm out. I Say with our rear bolt there being maxed out, that is what it is. That's as far as our camber adjustment is going to go without replacing the bowl which you know I'll leave that you know the customer but it's going to get us really close I Would rather have this like to be honest with it for a driver.
um, you know a little bit of negative camber to it. so pardon me if I was saying Caster camber is the angle we're going to. uh, it's going to be our limiter by how far that bolt can go. it's going to be how much positive camera we can get out of it.
Spec is 0.25 I'm going to stick some shims behind that one. we're going to Snug it up and then just adjust our Caster with the front and that's gonna. it's gonna be what it's going to be as far as our camber goes and then what we'll do is just our cross campers will match it over on that side. I'd Show you guys what I'm doing up in here.
but I can barely get my head and crap up in here. so I'm going to go in with a couple eighth inch shims. The only shim that was in the back was this one here which looks like an eighth inch. it appears to be I'm gonna put two in rear to start see what uh well we need.
Hopefully we can get them to stay I'm sure we're going to drop them a few times. There goes one. I Dropped There goes two I dropped all right, dropped it again and we dropped it again. Okay, we need to come up with a different method I Could say this is pretty terrible to try to work on.
Maybe I'm gonna get grease all over them and try to get them stuck in every grease. I'm gonna go get a magnet too there. Okay, I've got three eighth inch shims in there, but I could just get that last one In there. I don't think we'll be able to weasel another one down in and being that I got about one thread to go before I tighten that bolt up I'm going to leave the 3 8 inch in there I'm going to get up there and lightly snug it and then like I say We'll adjust the Caster at that point by tightening the front Bolt and then that's it. That's the best we can do on Camber because we're out of adjustment. But when I was prying around, put the pry bar I think it's going to get us. It's going to get us well, you know, within spec. but it's going to leave us a little on the negative side, which is actually better.
Okay, yeah, it's almost tight, right? Okay, so that Bolt's almost tight. we're right at the end of the thread, so that's good and then, so that is. Well, actually, we need to move uh, front of our arm out just to whisker, right? because we need to go back. More positive: Let me reach up in here with a problem reaching up on the front of the arm and push down.
If we set our Caster right there, we're close to that. That is as good as our camber is going to be as minus 0.25 which is, actually, in my opinion, is pretty desirable I Would rather have a little negative camber than positive camber certainly any day. So um, being at the arms, staying there from praying that let's get some shim shoved up in that thing. So there that's what it looks like in the rear bolt there with those shims I'm going to see what's in the front shim or front there currently and we'll get that shimmed out.
being that it's kind of staying essentially, you know, right where we want it Caster wise. So I think we're doing pretty good folks. This was a modern Day Chevrolet We'd already be out of here or Modern Day Ford And by modern I mean like 2021 or 22 because after 2020, everything's so Rusty Here, you can't turn the cams anyways. so let's see what we have here on.
We've got a bunch of little shims in there. Three of them anyways. Should we get them across the ground, put that a little more room there. I'm gonna grab three 1 8 inch shims.
we'll go for two. This one might be easier to get them on three. So let's go to our next bigger, which it says 16 64th, 32nd 30 seconds. So we'll go with 16th because that's the next biggest size.
We'll see if we can get a 16th in here I can just get it in there I'm curious if we should, uh, because it's the spec is sitting perfect right now I'm curious if we should pry it out just a little bit and put a 30 second of an inch in there. Well, I don't think so. Um, I'm gonna pry it out just enough to make sure that my shims are down on the bolt all the way and then we'll snug that up and see what our final readings are. On this side? Foreign and there we are Folks that is as close as this side it's going to get. So Caster's dead on. In order to change the camera, remember, we'd have to move both of the shims outward and being the fact that the inner bolt is out of threads, that's the best we can do. Let's see if I can get you up in there to get a better shot, but that's about the best I can do on your shot too. So it is what it is I did end up putting excuse me a 164th wall dropped you a 164 shim back with those two three eight shims because once I snugged everything up, the Caster is off just a whisper.
about a quarter degree or so. Well, a little more than about a third of a degree. So I put a 64th back there because once I tightened it down, it did expose a full thread. So I was able to make that adjustment and and get just this.
So all we'll do is when we do this side, the ladder's in the way we'll set our cross camber. um, the same. We'll try to skip this one around. A negative, you know, one quarter of a degree.
let me get set up over there I don't know what they have in that site as far as shims. um, but we'll get that done. We'll redo our compensation and then set the toe and give this thing a shake down. Well, if this isn't sketchy I don't know what it is.
We got the ratchet strap. it's going up to the pry bar to hold out on the front of the control arm for me because it has just enough pressure on it I can't hold out with a pry bar and then stick my hands in there to get a shim in it now. I've loosened up the rear control arm because I also have to remove some shims from it to start to get our Caster to come in. So I'm going to start tightening up the rear bolt on the upper arm I've got the front held now, which that's still going to end up needing to come out more.
but I want to start tightening up the rear to get our Caster to go more positive here. Uh, if I can I mean that should be the direction that we need to move it and then we'll loosen up. Uh, both of them more than likely here after I start snugging this one off. Yeah, cambered.
Let's see. so we're at minus 297. this should start to go positive. it's going to be pulling the top of the ball joint towards the rear view.
Yeah, we have 200. from 297 to 2.776 it's going down. so I'm going to continue tightening that up, see where we're at, and then we'll have to loosen up. Uh, when I get a little closer.
I'm going to loosen up the front one, move it out which will also change uh, the camber and the caster. So theoretically if I loosen this front one, if our ratchet strap business we got down there is actually working, it's going to move it or not. But this should also improve our Caster while improving the camp at the same time and that took it to minus 2.64 We are going to have a little bit of pressure I'm afraid that this bolt just got loose. Yeah, so that's bettering up our camber and our Caster.
Let me continue to tighten this back one down and I'll get a little more pressure on our ratchet strap down here just to make sure it's keeping that front bolt out in place. and once we get it half close, then we'll shim, tighten it down and make another adjustment. So I've got it kind of close to what we need. I'm going to try to start filling in some of the gaps here. get it as close as we can. we'll probably have to Snug it up and then make some minor adjustments. That's probably gonna be kind of sketchy, but let's release our there we go. get a little pressure on it, double check them foreign.
so we need to bring you know with everything tight now that we have it relatively close I feel a little better One thing I want to do because we did make a really gross adjustment on this side is: I want to set the car down I Want to redo the compensation, re-measure it because I found when we change, you know we had to change this. You know, four or five degrees I Want to make darn sure that our readings are correct before we make our fine tune adjustment. Hopefully this side stays, but that's what I want to do Foreign folks I've been fiddling with this side for a while and there's an old saying what is it Camber High Caster low. That's the way the car will go.
Yeah, that's right, yeah, Camber High Caster low. So camera High Caster low. That's the way the car will go. Technically, this car is probably going to have a slight right hand drift.
Now some of you will notice I changed my cast ring over here. That was slightly negative to a little bit more positive. and that's because I was having problems over here on the passenger side. So I can only imagine that with a manual steering car, an old car running your Caster at zero as it had specced out.
You know, plus or minus one degree is probably because it doesn't have power steering, so most modern day cars your Caster angle is quite High You know, two, three, four degrees depending on what it is and that way there you don't get a ton of bump steer and you have more responsive feel in your steering. So probably this isn't going to affect it much. but I ran them close to half a degree as I could now. I just fiddling over here.
you know, with like a 64 shim and it would run me way over. So I ended up just leaving it and I also left the camber a little on the negative side. Both of these factors slightly positive caster and slightly negative camber are going to give it a little better handling characteristics. Now if I drive it and the steering is too heavy because it's manual steering, then we'll come in and change the Caster I Don't think it will be, but this will correct a little bit of bump stereo to help the steering wheel return to Center and I Don't think the you know cross camber difference of you know, whatever at one tenth of one degree is really going to make that big a difference.
Uh, as far as the pull, so I'm not super concerned with that. Let's get the toe straightened out on this thing and then we'll take it for a drive and see how it does. Okay, check that one should fit the sleeve. okay and what we're going to do now is we're going to adjust the toe and currently the steering wheel in the vehicle I have set straight and he's a program on here called easy Tow and hopefully it works out now the first time. And when you go into, uh, get your wheel alignment, your wheel alignment at a lot of shops, this is all you get. The simple set to toe Let It Go It'd be really nice if that weren't true, but around here, at least in our area, it seems to be because we do an awful lot of wheel alignments. by we I mean usually Josh does that, he's on vacation. So I'm stuck over here today.
um and the majority of them that we get in have already been. you know, aligned and typically it's just the toe set. Everything else is, you know, off the charts or you I mean typically what it is, they come in in the front ends falling apart, you know, ball joints, tie rod ends, you know, you name it. everything's loose and supposedly had a you know a line but they at least got charged there.
you know, 99.99 or whatever it is at the Discount Tire store to get it aligned. whatever way you think it needs to go, stop, turn around, go the other way. trust me. 50 of the time.
every time scoot your back just a little bit and snug it up. I'm going to switch screens. we'll do the toe on the left side now. First try it's back.
Sometimes you gotta redo the toe a couple times to get it right out of money. Sometimes cars just need Towing ghosts and sometimes cars have no adjustment except for tow at least from the factory. Um, oftentimes on Modern cars especially, you know, like cheap little lightweight cars, they have no adjustment on the front, just just toe and that's it. You know if you want to do any camber adjustments, you know you're buying aftermarket cam bolts or aftermarket control arms for the rear, but usually there's an option to get them.
you know, get them lined up. So now all we need to do is uh, set it down and see if our steering wheel is straight but something that can kind of bone you on. This is the thrust angle. so this car is not.
The rear axle is put in crooked basically and it you know the total tone reacts looks good so it's fine. It's not going to wear tires, but what it does is it's going to give this car a slight dog track. and when your thrusting goes off even though you're total toe and your your individual toe for that matter, your toe in general will say on the front it's set straight. you could drive it down the road and have a slightly crooked steering wheel.
because it's sitting here, it's straight. When we go down the road you know the car is going to go. This is super over dramatized. You know it's going to dog track sideways thereby making your steering wheel slightly off. So let's see where our steering wheel is at. We'll take it for a shake and sometimes it has to be over half a degree of thrust angle to really kind of screw your steering wheel. so we're going to set it straight. but if we got to come in and tweak it again, we will.
So we look at our cross diagonal measurements. it's about three quarters of an inch out of square, which is, you know accounts for our thrust angle being off. and you can see that here. Um, with our it's not our track difference, it's our wheelbase measurement difference.
Um, you know, side to side which isn't off significantly. You'll be surprised if you look at a lot of new cars and you start looking at the cross-dimensional uh specs on them or uh, you know, wheelbase side to side they're They can be quite a ways off, even brand new. So we're gonna hang up our stuff. We're gonna take it for a drive.
We're gonna see what it feels like, see how it drives and responds and ship it or do it again. We're going for a rep. foreign, slightly tipped or whisker to the right so we'll have to tow. but we'll get up here on stretch here and see what we think about so far.
I Mean it feels wonderful. You might go on the steering wheel No Hands on the Wheel one hand on the camera finally just starting to drift off the road crowd. so nothing excessive. Foreign actually drives quite nice.
but like I said, the steering wheel is just No Hands on the Wheel Oh no hands, no feet, no legs either. I'm not touching. It actually goes nice and straight straight. very slight.
Road Crown drift to the right so I'm happy. I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna tweak that tote one last time. steering wheel straightened out.
Wow. dude. I Haven't drove something with Pope or a manual Brakes in a really long time. All right round.
I Gave it a little tweak. Steering wheel is super straight. We're going super straight down the road. I'm thinking this isn't a 80 mile an hour down the highway.
not a car. Nice drive. There you go folks. 1966 Ford Mustang All done.
Seems to drive and run well. Of course we didn't do anything with the running, but it seems to go down the road good and doesn't pull steering wheel straight and it's not really obnoxious to steer, so that's good. Uh, if you guys you know, work in a shop and you're doing alignments and you're guilty of doing the tow and go because you don't understand the rest of it, Educate yourself on it, man. Do yourself a favor.
Get online. start looking up stuff. There's all kinds of stuff to look up and and all kinds of information out there. Uh where you can learn about you know the effects of of caster and Camber steering angle Incarnation and scrub angles and and all that stuff.
uh that you can learn. You know about wheel alignments and steering geometry and and for the most part on your run-of-the-mill cars that we're working on. you know, setting Caster camber and Tow up to factory specs usually gets them down the road. pretty nice so you don't have to get too you know, crazy and knowing everything. but it is nice to know the effects of you know, positive negative camera and positive negative caster Because if you're driving a car and you have an issue let's say you have a pole one way or another or you know vehicle tends want to wander or you know has a you know incredible amount of bump, steer or you know, steering wheels not returning the center. It's nice to be able to look at the measurements and say well you know this is a explains why it's doing this or look at it and be like well you know according to these measurements I take knowing what I know this doesn't have anything to to do with. You know why the car pulls, you know, maybe we got a radio pulled at this point. Now we can swap our tires or if you're working on Modern Day stuff.
you know you have things like active pull compensation. Um, you know going in and resetting your your steering angle sensors and you know there's especially with electronic racks. Um, you know on some of the GMS and Chrysler to work on are pretty notorious for it. You can get done with wheel line, you drive down the road and that thing is fighting you the whole way.
Come in couple Clacks of a button and Boom now we're going straight again. So anyhow, back to doing some old stuff. Um, it's good to know just the fundamentals. So I Know this video wasn't great as far as being able to see a lot of stuff, but hopefully you got to see how the alignment was done on some of these old cars.
Even though I'm not a old car or alignment expert, there's no smooth transition here. Comment section: folks, questions, comments, concerns. usually I'm better with that. Instead the Facebook this is from our viewers.
If I can do it, you can do it. Thanks for watching foreign.
Your the best dude 😎
Love it! Reminds me of high school!
Two lane roads have some crown car while drift to the right a slight pull to right is ok on a crowned road it can be compensated with caster or camber if steering wheel is off centered adjust toe in the opposite direction
You know you like that Stang just like Ms O. Good ol' gal
Do you charge extra for using shims on a front end alignment
Had a 1965 mustang, when car was on hoist, top balljoint would drop 1/4 inch , an unfamiliar mechanic would want to replace them. Lucky for me i had the book to show it was normal
Good video buddy!!! I love doing alignments and the toe and go places give us a bad name. Ther eis alot to an alignment and on newer cars when the numbers are way off its mostly worn parts. Folks we aren't trying to hoodoo ya. Just setting toe won't fix chords hanging out of the inside of your right front and new tread center out
Dang Eric! You are so smart! I love it
It was a pain in the butt aligning my 1966 GMC with shims. But surprisingly the alignment machine at my shop had the correct specs for it. Verified by checking with my factory service manual.
Took a couple tries to get it all dialed in.
I had to toe align my 79 ford truck myself because i dont know if any shop could do it. Im sure its not perfectly right but it seems good enough. To adjust camber on an old twin I beam Ford, you literally would have to bend the i beams. Good luck finding a shop knowing that these days. Well, maybe a large truck shop would know
If that was an old model GM, no problem because shim access is easy.
my cousin was the front end guy for 35 years at a local ford shop ! i did some work for a guy that did mustangs . my cousin said it took about 4 hrs to do an old mustang when they were new ! the one i was working on was a real disaster. like your stuff
It was cool seeing that old school ride!
Wow I all most wish I was there to help you on that It's kinda telling my age but I've aline many of them and falcon.
Watching that video was great brought back memories thanks
Your lucky. Real old school is a level and tape measure. No lasers, electronics, or computer.
Also never be ashamed to taking out the book, be it for a tool or repair manual, we can't remember everything, just almost everything, lol the day you stop learning is the day you are dead! Absolutely get the books out, jump online, never be ashamed to ask questions, its how we learn and become better mechanics or techs or whatever they call it now.
Takes us all back those of us old gear heads, for some reason I remember this being easier, but definitely you made it interesting Eric. I saw the Hat fly off you can't tell me different!!!
Yeah it's been a very long time since ive seen a stang up for an alignment. Very nice example as you said not all littered up with scrtch and sniff after market crap, or Krap as its not even good enough krap to deserve a real C. Lol love you Eric you always cheer me up Brother.
Short of state inspection, glass, and tires and alignments, I do everything else. Old, new, mostly domesticated animals, occasionally foreign horses.
Eric, as an owner of an ooold car, if not comfortable with the old technology, don't take on these projects. If you weren't exposed to the old iron as a kid, too much of a learning curve to make up for. Just say, any car older than 2000, have them go somewhere else.
Omg Dollar General's spreading faster then c0v1d.
Great content!!
That was quite educational. Just had a 69 Mustang in the shop, that the customer had replaced everything. Was ridiculously off everywhere. Boss didn't want anything to do with it, so I gave it a go. New upper A-arm bolts were too short, limiting my shim selection, but managed to get it reasonably close. Definitely no fun! After watching this video, next time won't be so bad. Still, not very comfortable working quarters in those well wells.
Where was YouTube in 1983! My first car was a 68 mustang fastback and I didn’t have it long before I hit a curb cornering too fast and tore up some front end parts. I can’t remember all of it but I remember helping dad fixing it and remember using a string to line up the front end. How accurate that was I don’t remember but I drove that car for quite awhile after that with no issues.
I like to see t working on the old classics from time to time. Some mechanics don't ever really get to work on them, but there some pros and cons about working on them !!!
Just got it restored…rats nest wiring on inner fender well. Yikes
That was a full day! Hope you got paid appropriately…
tape the shims together with masking tape and the bolts have a spline at the head though the control arms plus bring your toes out with your adjustment as it will alter your cam cast adj
I had a friend who had a newer Toyota pickup, had an accident and knocked the back axel off it, when it was “fixed” it would eat tires and you could NOT drive it in the rain, the back axel would just slide out…
Bought a 65 Mustang when I was in high school as my 1st car in 1984. I can tell you when I would pull up at the alignment shops, that hated seeing it knowing it was more involved to align than anything new!
You sure make me feel old watching this one. Good info from you like usual.
Good job, Eric. These are the cars I worked on in my day. I could say a lot on this. However, you did an excellent job. It was not unusual to have a brand new car off by more you did. I will bet if like you say original owner my bet is he will tell you it never drove as good as it does now.
You thought about getting it where it needs to be and then loosing it a half a turn them shim it and then tighten it?
Did you check on the manufacturer's website of the control arms for a baseline?
I'm surprised the guy didn't have all four sets of shims wired tied together in a baggy for when he went back to stock.
Did you tell him it could take weeks and lots of test drives to get it just right?
Good video
Chevy guy here… Beautiful car! 🙂 Great video and learned a lot. Thanks Mr. O!
I put rebuilt control arms and drop spindles and all new drag link idler arm and tie rod ends on a 55 Chevy for a friend and found ONE guy in a 100 mile radius who would align it. ALL the shops had that computer stuff similar to yours but you can't put anything on the rear wheels to do the alignment because the rear quarters cover the top of the tires and rim. He had a pit with turn tables and mirrors for the front wheels and TWO different computer alignment setups over in the back corners of his large shop. He is 67-69 and said he rarely uses the computer setups. Mostly for expensive foreign cars. Even with the original sloppy manual steering box he had the steering wheel straight as an arrow at 60 mph on the hiway with any drift obviously caused by the road. No bump steer or weird problems if you crank the wheel all the way and turn into an uphill or downhill driveway. I don't know what I will do when he retires though.
Mustangs of this era have camber gain as the suspension compresses, so slightly negative camber is good.
The real fix to correct the geometry is to redrill the upper control arm bolts 1" lower and 1/8" to the rear (gets rid of the camber gain plus some additional caster). It also lowers the front end about 3/4"
This is a Carroll Shelby modification that gives you improved handling.
Search for Shelby drop
All Owners of this Make and Model. If you recently replaced the sending unit seal, it is wrong. The china fab company sourced O-rings of the wrong profile. The ones supplied are round but square too, and deflect easily under any load. One big bump and BAM you have lost all fuel. WTF China. This can be remedied by visiting a local hydraulic parts warehouse, and have them grab a few Round O-rings so the rings dimensions can be checked at the counter for proper fitment.
We had a customers Mustang in our shop for a carpet kit. I was getting high on gas fumes, not glue. Told the boss, he called the customer. When he showed up, I started checking for leaks under the car. The sender was letting a drop out about every 8 seconds. I checked the snap ring to make sure it snapped in, but it was loose AF. I pushed the unit a little and was greeted by the rush of Gasoline. GET ME ANY EMPTY DRAIN PANS PLEASE, I yelled as I tried to stop the flow. No luck. Too much gap in the seal now. I bathed in gasoline. The customer was very apologetic. I said the apology was all on me sir! I showed him the issue after I figured it out. He was baffled that No auto parts store or website has the correct shit! Even Amazon sells you the wrong seal in their kit, which is where it was sourced. That sender is in a bunch of different Ford cars and trucks. Knowing this, I visited a Ford Car club show one Saturday to see if any cars out there are leaking fuel. Fuck yes they are. I lost count at the number of guys and gals I talked to at the show asking if their car smells bad of gas in their garage. A few said "how did ya know?" I replied "I like cars and people need to know this!" FIRE BAD
Great video!
Even got the factory airbag!
That car is a gem
Had to show my grandson how to set up the toe in and toe out with using a tape measure on his 70 Chevy Malibu after he (we) replaced tie rod ends, sleeves and upper and lower ball joints and the person who aligned it was the owners Dad few years younger than me I’m 68 and he was done in about 45 minutes and he said to his son that is what paid for your education all them years and you couldn’t figure it out? He said that he was very appreciative of the new sleeves on the tie rods and the dab of never sneeze and by the way the toe in was only off by a half turn on the adjusting sleeves. Not to shabby for a old wrencher
It was a great video! I think most people have no idea what a front end alignment means. They do not know why tires wear, steering pulls or anything close to how it all works together. I wish I could have what you do, with years of experience doing the work and test driving the cars after. You don"t get that unless you do the work all of the time. Great vid!
Eric is THE expert.
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I very much enjoyed this one , I owned a 67 mustang in the late seventies. They weren’t the best built cars but fun to drive.
God bless you Eric. I have a 91 toyota pickup. Entire front suspension replaced. No rust. She needs shims for caster and camber. I went to 3 shops. Told them that she’s all new in the front. Every bolt/nut will break loose. All 3 shops didn’t want to align my truck
Did massive research, spent a whole day doing a home alignment. She’s not perfect. But she tracks pretty straight for diy.
Awesome, great video!!! Love your vids man, just learn a ton of cool stuff under the hood!!! Thanks Mr O!!!
That is a true classic car. They really got it right with the 66 289 hipo 4 speed.
I know this particular example is not a hipo or a 4 speed but it has everything else.
Not hardly a Ford guy here but pretty cool old car and great work by you Eric and the Boss lol
My 2019 RAM 2500 slightly pulls to the right. It's done it since brand new. Yes, I should have taken it in prior to the warranty expiring in March 2023, but I did not. I had a private Mechanic attempt an alignment. The front end is to spec. The rear axle was not installed properly. I have asked the Mechanic to do the repair, because my local Dodge RAM Dealer has made too many errors with my truck and my wife's car. When the repair is done, I will make a claim against RAM. Even though the warranty is expired, the Mechanic said the Manufacturer should pay for this repair. Wish me luck.
Well done!
"…we've got a '66 Ford Mustang with the big 289…"
Wish i was near you. Had my 2004 F350 at the dealer i boight it new and a large well know private shop for alignment. Neither place can get it aligned properly which is historical since its a solid axle leaf spring truck
Keep up the good work
I took my van to have an alignment, the guy had it on the lift then came back and informed me I needed a few parts. No charge and service with a smile
You do an awesome job every time, most tyre places have no idea, for them rough enough good enough.
Narrations are always good like 👍🏽
Interesting video, indeed!
Try doing an alignment on a 1994 F150 Lightning with the front end springs cut off to lower it. Yeah…that was my first decline to service as an alignment tech. Lol. If you know, you know. 😂😉
I made a jig you used with a bubble level that went on the upper/lower ball joint nuts. Makes sure the nuts are clocked the same. If the level said level, you had 2 degrees of positive caster on my 66 mustang. 2' level on the tires just offset from the center bulge at the bottom set the negative camber. Tape measure set the toe in. put 45,000 miles on that car before Hoovie bought it and it tracked perfect down the road. Helped that I had a grease pit to do all of that from underneath…. upper control arm bolts are pressed in due to spline shafts… Great video.. Plan to use the same jig on my 63 falcon. did do the shelby drop on three different cars.
I think it's a good video. To see what you need to go through and maybe have a better understanding what the mechanic is telling you about a repair.👍
Always nice to do the old school alignments and break up the routine. Definitely more time consuming, but that's probably the best Alignment that thing has ever had even off the assembly line TBH. COOL car, I prefer the hardtop look more, but still a nice looking Mustang nonetheless.
My hunter tells me which shim goes where. Makes it so easy
If I remember correctly the upper control arm bolts are pressed into the control arms, to keep the bolts from turning. Back in the 80's when places were only charging 39- 49 bucks for a f/e alignment we decided to give it up, and had our alignment rack removed. There was no money in it. It was taking up a bay for only being used about 1-2 times a week. Best decision we ever made. No more headaches. Amazingly, people would still come to us for the steering and suspension components replacement.
Also, it helps to put the drivers weight in the front seat. Sand bags, brake rotors, etc.
I use to restore/repair 64 1/2-72 Mustangs back in 1984. The Shelby upper control arm mod is very simple (drill two holes above factory holes). There are drill patterns available on line, just print on your printer and drill the new holes. It will help drastywith front end alignment AND handling.
To keep the shims in place, I use 3M body caulking strips PN 08568 . Handy stuff to have on hand to keep nuts in a socket, and a plethra of other uses to keep things in place, it'll also seal holes in fire walls. It's non drying and not messy.
Holy cow! I subscribed a few years ago and you had no where near 800k subscribers. Patreon, merch, you are running with this. Good for you!
This alignment video reminds me of the one you did in your dad's garage, I think. You explained it but I forget the specifics. You give a little personal touch without trying. Your formula works.
what was that tool you used for the toe? i have and 87 cmaro and usually get stuck with some older vehicles at my dealership
Most shops probably wouldn't even be able to do that job. I wish I still lived in upstate NY only cause you are there I think anyway. I used to live in Saranac NY up by the Adirondack mountains, where are you from there.
What was causing the thrust angle to be 3/4 inch off? Was it in the frame/body or the rear suspension?
What is the road crown like up there? I’d prefer a little drift to the left. Do you ever put extra weight on the driver seat if the driver is heavy? I always ask and check the truck to see what kind of weight they cart around back there.
Boy did this video take me back! I started my mechanic career in 1973 in a Ford dealership and did alignments on these day in and day out. Didn't have electronic alignment equipment….I still have my magnetic gauge and toe bar. I retired after 50 plus years and now get my mechanic fix by watching you fix them. Great job. I enjoy your channel immensely. Thank You.
I spent a few years working for K-Mart at one of their garages in Erie, PA in the early eighties. At that time they had a school in East Brunswick, NJ where they sent their mechanics for training. The classes were five full days and I took both the air conditioning and front end alignment classes. At that time everything had either shims or cams for adjustments, so I learned how to do the calculations on how many shims to put in or take out in order to adjust caster and camber at the same time instead of two separate operations, or how far to turn the cams and in what direction to get both camber and caster in one shot. No, I do not remember how to do that anymore, but I do still understand all of the aspects of wheel alignment theory. As you said, everybody doing alignments should at least have a working knowledge of how the angles impact handling. Your machine sure does make it much easier to see what is going on. I learned on a Hunter Light Align 2 machine so it was all up to the technician to do the calculations, make the adjustments, then recheck to make sure it was right. Gotta love progress, but technology isn't cheap. Most places as you say just set the toe and let it go, but if they don't do that, they just straighten the wheel and let it squeal. Just an observation, that guy really should put a fan shroud on that car so overheating won't be an issue. Another great video, thanks for posting.
It's kind of funny to watch a modern alignment machine with a vintage Mustang. I'm certain on some level. It was fun and interesting for you. It certainly was interesting to watch. Thanks for sharing! 👍😎
Nice one Mr. O
Man, i do not miss those days of alignments. I remember charging 49.95 to do all that crap. Hats off to you Sir. Most folks now aday wouldnt even touch that car and if they did they would set the toe send it out the door with a crooked steering wheel.
Putting a dab of grease on the shims makes them stick where you want them, they won't fall out as easily.
Never owned a Stang but a couple buddies had ‘em so definitely got some wheel time. Once, a trip to Key West and back to Maryland so got a lot of time behind the wheel on that trip. Easy car to drive and a pleasurable ride. Great memories!
There was a guy in my town who did the best alignments, I went there one day two years ago and the door was locked, I figured he was just shut for the day or on vacation, 9 wish that were the case, after trying for a week I decided to check the obituaries online and to my surprise he passed away, this was during covid, I don't know if he succumbed he was 71 I found out but he didn't look it, he had great bear equipment and a pit, he would drive the car over it and it was kind of an acrobatic maneuver to get out of the car, he wou,d then climb down into the pit, his father had the business and it was at one time a body shop, in the back was an old paint booth, the building was rather dilapidated and didn't even look like it was still operational, I went by there last week and there was a fence all around it so I imagine it will be torn down, every shop in town used him, R.I.P. Joe Harri.
Alignments were my favorite!
What a beauty 🙂
I think every front guy should know and be good at old school alignments before they even mess with todays cars. It teaches basics prior.
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That was an interesting video! I seem to recall that on a lot of the old cars, the shims were accessible from the top and inside the engine compartment. Maybe those weren't unibody….
Nice rack !
Neat!!! A terrifying Halloween special in August!!
Excuse why I hug a Mopar.
I think I'll go down to HF and get a body shim assortment just to have them around. Good on ya:-)
Ivan’s old school way of setting alignment and SMA garage Bay classroom instruction video are classics. 100!
Mrs. O doing her Jungle Pam impression.
THAT. WAS. SOOOO. FREAKING. COOL!!!!!!
Very basic alignment with those "shims". Lots of the 1960-1970s used those, mostly Ford did I believe. Got some wide tires on those wheels though. Its sure nice to see an old car dash and steering wheel layout in action !
The most honest man in the world! Fantastic job!
Do the job was tedious I'm sure you had fun going back to the basics
"but I'm no alignment expert…. You all on the other hand go on and align yourselves in that comment section"
Love how you say this wasn’t a great video. For the first time, I need to say YOU’RE WRONG ERIC O!! I learned stuff. I just had my 12 Kia Forte aligned after swapping shocks and struts (162k on ‘em), then did tires, then the alignment. Now I know why I wanted the alignment, and I commuted in it today for the first time…what a difference! And the steering wheel is straight for the first time since I bought it at 91k!
Thank you so much for what you do!! May God continue to bless you and Mrs. O!!
That video was awesome thanks for doing it
I remember lower CA cams for camber strut rods for caster on Mustangs from the 60's
I got a 57 chevy, 70 Pontiac, 39 chevy truck. I found THIS video to be one of your MUCH BETTER videos.❤