DIY cheap temporary alignment

I plan on giving my Mustang's suspension a decent overhaul- camber/caster plates, struts/shocks, springs, adjustable Panhard bar, and Panhard brace.

The closest shop to me that will touch camber/caster plates is about a 35 mile, 35-45 minute drive from my house. I plan to take backroads there, but I'm still worried about the handling being out of whack. I'll try to keep the struts as close to 0deg camber and caster as possible when installing them. Will that be enough to keep me out of the weeds, or will I need to do a temporary alignment beforehand? If so, any tips anyone can recommend to me for doing this on the cheap?

Yes, this is a n00b question, but this will be the first car I will have installed camber plates on. Some sort of camber adjustment is necessary for the S197s when lowered because there will be a lot of negative camber left over if I reuse the stock strut mounts. The springs I plan to use will lower the car by 1.5".

I aligned my Son's Escort in the back yard, with a piece of string, a tape measure, a framing square and an angle gauge, after doing tie rod ends and bushings. He put 40K miles on that alignment with no signs of tire wear or funky handling. Then he piled it into the back of a boat. Needles to say the alignment didn't survive.

It isn't rocket science and you don't even need a computer.

Edited because rocked and rocket just aren't the same.

I set the toe with 2 of steel angle iron and a tape measure about 1/8 toe in ,set the camber with a level. Drove good

Yep. Google diy string alignment. You can definitely get it good enough to drive 40 miles without wrecking tires.

it's easy to do your own alignments once you sit down and actually think about what you are trying to accomplish- set the wheels up at certain angles along 3 different axis..

do the caster first- the angle from the lower balljoint to the upper pivot point as seen from the side of the car.

then do the camber- the angle of the top of the tire relative to the bottom of the tire as seen from the front of the car.

set the toe last- the angle of the front of the tire inward relative to the rear of the tire, as seen from above the car..

easy peasy...

i use jackstands and string to set it all up relative to the rear tires after i use that same string setup to see if the rear axle is straight relative to the centerline of the car...

Toe's the one that's going to wreck tires fastest. Get that close and the car will handle normal driving well enough to get you there.

Parts needed. A magnetic angle finder. 4 cheap thin cutting board Wrenches to fit the car. When assembling the car before you install the hub remove the dust shield from the spindel so the rotor is exposed from the back side. Some cars come this way some not. Camber is simply the angle of the brake rotor with steering rack centered. Stick the angle finder to the inside of the brake rotor. Remember if the rotor is not100% perpendicular to the spindel your going to have brake shake so its a great place to measure off of. For caster it is critical if you want it to be the real number however doing as you suggest is how most do it. Repeatable is what your after. A long time ago before I had plates I used a drafting table (ya one of those things before CAD) to figure this out. With the Circumference of the old McCreary tire (now the AR we run again) I calculated the tires radius. Using the protractor on the table I found if I made a mark out at the distance of the radius then moved the protractor to 20 deg and made new mark I had a straight line distance of 8 inches. So to set Caster you need 20 deg from either side of center With the wheels faced straight and the inner tie rod ends lined up with the lower inner ball joint (hiems) (side note: if your rack is shorter or longer than the distance between the inner ball joint set it in the middle. Use Wife’s old nail polish to mark tie rods so you can see it at the track later on) Okay so now the racks centered as best as can be. Set your toe to Zero on both sides so wheels are straight to the chassis center line. Now run a plumb bob down the center tread. Make mark on the floor. Put caster gauge on the spindle (or angle finder on the brake rotor.) Turn wheel and let plumb bob settle measure from center mark to plumb turn until you get 4.09 inches. Make new mark. Read gauge and WRITE IT DOWN. Turn wheel the other direction until it is 4.09 inches from the center mark (NOTE: this will not be 8.18 inches from the other mark! Due to the arc the tire scrubs it is 8.0566 but who’s measuring that close…) make another mark. Read gauge and WRITE IT DOWN. Now subtract the two readings. There’s your caster. Adjust as needed. Do the same for the other side once you have caster set recheck your TOE as it will likely have changed then recheck the caster numbers. Then set your toe. Me I use 1/16 out on my Jaxport but my old home built uses 1/8 out. I personally make my toe adjustments on the For different tire sizes you can use math to figure out the distance as the Triangle has two side the same length and you know the angle is 20 deg. I took the easy way with the drafting table..But now that the web is hear it’s even quicker. http://www.1728.com/trig4.htm

for example a tire with 74inch roll out has a diameter of 23.555 = a radius of 11.778

Oh as for turn plates….Go to Bed and Bath or Kitchen etc. grab the 4 pack of CHEAP thin plastic cutting boards (note cheap ones are slippery the higher $ units have silicone on one side to grip the counter) These make it easy to turn the wheels and eliminate the side scrub errors from high offset wheels.