Only one little problem with that technique... Every tire I know of will
have a bulge at the bottom due to the weight of the car sitting on it.
OTOH, the wheel is pretty much deflection free ;-) You might try the same
thing there. Measure the tangent using an appropriate length plumb level or
use a fixture to suspend a plumb bob a sufficient distance from the wheel at
the centerline of the wheel and measure the distance from the string to the
wheel at top and bottom. The difference in the 2 measurements is the
tangent of the angle.
Toe is even easier to visualize, a bit harder to measure. If you have tires
that are very straight and round, and have tread, you can measure at the
front and the rear of the tire (preferably on the horizontal centerline, but
at least at the same distance from the vertical center line front and rear
to get the total difference in track from the front of the tire to the rear
of the tire. The toe will be half that number (the difference between the
actual track where the tire pivots and the front or rear of the tire. If
not at the horizontal centerline, then you will have to calculate a
correction factor to account for the location on the tire. For instance at
45º from vertical (or horizontal) the measured distance is .707 x the
actual distance (difference) in toe. for treadless tires or if you are a
stickler for the last word in accuracy, push a push pin into the face of
each tire towards the rear of the car and measure the distance between the
pins. Now roll the car forward and measure again with the pins at the
front. The same caveats apply for correction factors etc. One other thing
to be aware of. If you start cranking on the tie rods to correct a toe
problem, be sure to move the car back and forth before taking a measurement.
Even crummy old street tires stick to the garage floor well enough to throw
a bind into the system and mess up your measurements. (now ask me how I
would know that ;) ). I've been doing this for 30 years and my current ride
has had one commercial alignment in 200K miles. The tires wear quite
nicely, thank you.
Mike Allendorfer
89 Honda Civic SI
96 Impala SS
others
----- Original Message -----
From: Kit Wetzler <kitwetzler@mindspring.com>
To: <ba-autox@autox.team.net>; James Pung <jpung@2xtreme.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: 7/9 FM sound system
>
> camber is really easy.
>
> stand a yard stick up at the bottom of the tire and measure how far away
> the top of the tire is, 90 degrees from the yardstick.
>
> tangent (camber angle) = (distance from yardstick to tire) / (overall
> height of tire)
>
> -kit
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "James Pung" <jpung@2xtreme.net>
> To: <ba-autox@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 6:47 PM
> Subject: Re: Fwd: 7/9 FM sound system
>
>
> > Anybody know the formula or a web page on how to calculate the camber
and
> > toe using ordinary tools and a tape measure?
> >
>
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