Can any alignment experts help me out?!?

I've got a '51 Ford, and I've removed and rebuilt the kingpins/a-arms and replaced the steering box. So my alignment is probably a little cocked up

Since I don't have a camber/caster gauge made yet(and no time, gotta get to the new Paso! and no tool to adjust it with either, I can't find out what I need), and I just need to get the car 2 miles across town to park it at home, I'm wondering if I can get away with just setting toe in?

Now here's the real questions: Do I need to have the car leveled to set the toe in, and do I need to roll the car back and forth to re-settle the suspension each time after adjusting the tie rods and re-measuring?

The place I'm working is pretty off plumb. Can I jack the car up(convenient since it already is ) scribe a line on each tire, and measure front and rear of it (at the same location) and figure out my toe in adjustment that way?

My slightly rough measurement tonight (raining, dark, and cold so I was kinda rushed ) gave me about an inch and 1/4" wider in front than in the rear, using the above method(scribe, up on stands).

Is that so egregious that I really need to adjust the camber/caster before I even think about adjusting the toe in?

If I just adjust the toe in to get that right, could one of the tires still be wayyy off camber/caster more than the othere one?

And the kicker: if I can get the toe in to 1/8"-maybe not possible since the camber/caster could be way off-am I going to mess up my tires something fierce by driving it 4 miles round trip once or twice across town and back? That ought to buy me enough time to get my ducks in a row with the adjusting tool/camber gauge.

FINALLY, what do I use to turn the daggone tie rod sleeve, and what direction?!? I'm guessing it's to the right if I'm facing toward the engine and I want to get more toe in. I looked at autozone and didn't find any tie rod adjustor , pep boys may have something, but can I just use some vice grips in a pinch? if it doesn't want to turn, do I just put some heat on the sleeve?

I hope this makes some kinda sense, I'm corn-fused!

Thanks!

 

well john in not an expert but i have done plenty of alignments . you should leave the weight on the weight on the vehicle while checking and adjusting . plum shouldnt matter . im not sure how much room you have to run a string or tape on a straight line from tire to tire , but if your looking to get close go as high on the tire as possible . for short distance get as close to 0-1/8" as possible . the "bounce should only apply on camber-caster adjustment . as for no adjuster tool ive used a pipe wrench in a pinch , also if you have a carpenters square use it as a guide for camber closeness (it gives you an idea how close you are) this may not help but i drove the last progect for about a month after using this method until i got it on the alignment machine . as for direction of sleeve turning im sure yours is like most and they each turn the opposite direction to achieve desired location , measure 1 side at easiest location and turn about 1 turn and measure again , this should be a guide , good luck and i hope i helped at least a little bit. mopar210

 

Thank you Mopar that's a huge help!

Pipe wrench is a great idea, I never woulda thought of that but it makes sense!

 

Looking at the threads will tell you which way to turn the sleeve.

A good pair of Channel-Locks will turn a sleeve that's not frozen up . . . and most of them aren't.

Got a digital carpenters level?
If it's short enough you can place it against the sides of the tire - stay away from the bulge at the bottom - and measure camber with that.

Measure caster with the digital level as well.
Just find yourself a flat surface to set the caster or use a known to be square block of steel or wood if necessary to adapt the level to a flat surface.
Flat surface being on the suspension somewhere.
Like the top of the kingpin boss on a car with solid axle.

Toe-in like you described, scribe a center-line on the tire and have helper hold the other end of the tape measure.

You can also measure toe-in by setting some angle steel on top of a couple of 4x4's fore and aft of each tire and moving the angle steel so it touches the tire above the bulge.
Measure the distance between the angle steel pieces on each side.

To make turning the steering wheel easy, set the car on about 6-8 thicknesses of newspaper.

 

Toe in. Raise car set A arms on jack stands holding vehicle weight. approaching the wheel from each side. put a pin or needle in the high part of the tread on each wheel. rotate the wheels so the the pins are in close alignment to each other and are pointing to the front of the vehicle as high as possible to get a tape measure across them. record the measurement. Now rotate the wheel/pins to face back of vehicle as high as possible to get tape measure across record measurement. For .125" toe in adjust the tie rods so that the front measurement is .125" less then rear. For camber I found the best tool to use was a short digital level abou 6 inch No the are not cheap but they have a multitude of uses. Pull wheels place on drums or disc and adjust away to desired settings.