vic, what size tires are on the front?? my dealings with a frontend shop is they are not up on what it takes to line an older car. if you can find a frontend man that has been in the biz. for thirty years he may can help. find someone that does a lot of early mustangs. jmo...frank...
ok there is so much that can go wrong with your front end my other post i did my upper ball joints and both idler arms and all my shocks it has totally helped my car use to shake so bad at a hundred and they wrecked my original 1975 tires on one side on the inside then i got an alighnment done go to a reprebable guy with a guarantee that way if the screw your stuff up you take it back
when i had my 64 fairlane done. it seemed to go straight but since i had just changed all the ball joints and went to a pst front end, i thought just to be on the safe side i'd have it checked. when i left the garage it pulled so badly to the left that i could stop at the corner, then make a left without touching the steering wheel. they never went under the hood at all. did everything from the bottom. i took it to a 70 year old man who had an alignment shop. first thing he did was get under the hood, before he got under it. did a great job and didn't have any fancy machines.
I used to work at Goodyear back in the early 70's as a front end mechanic and have aligned a bunch of these cars. I can tell you these are pretty stout cars as far as the front end goes. If all your parts are good, and the car has never been seriously wrecked, there's no way it will go out of alignment once set correctly. This is considering normal driving, of course. I would take it to another shop. I had a similar problem many years ago when I took mine to a local shop. I went round and round with the guy there who kept blaiming the car for the way it handled. I eventually gave up and took it somewhere else. The new guy aligned it correctly and it handled like a new car ever since. By the way Don, I'm not sure what that guy did under the hood but all the adjustments are easily accessable from under the car. Falcons, Mustangs, and our cars all have the same type front end and I never went under the hood when aligning them.
i think it had something to do with the shims at the top of the a frame, but whatever he did it went straight as an arrow after he finished.
They have no business doing alignments if they don't know how to set caster, camber, and toe. It's pretty basic stuff for a professional shop to do...
The comment about using someone familiar with these older suspensions is a good one. It is also important that the alignment of all 4 wheels be looked at to see if there is any problems with the rear axle mounting. When I rebuilt the front suspension on the PoliceMav, I took it to a guy that has been in the business for a long time. He looked carefully at everything and found that I had a bad idler arm. He managed to align the front nicely considering the bad arm so I could use it until I replaced the arm. After I did that the next day, I returned to have it rechecked and the end results were quite impressive. Many of the chain shops are not as familiar with the older setups and are more like a 'production line' in how they do business. Often, it pays to use someone with a shop out in the sticks somewhere that really knows what he is doing. Another bonus is that they usually are more reasonable than the chain shops as well. This shop owner only charged me $30 for the 4 wheel alignment and the recheck. The car tracks straight as an arrow ever since.
i have changed the ball joints the ideler arm the swing arms oh, and im running 205/60/15 all around also my car drives stright but the tires still wear on the inside im on my 3rd set of tires on the front at $98 a pop (in 3 years) and you can see the tires butter fly just a bit.
I just think that if someone is a professional and they know how to do alignments, the age of the car should not mattter. The machine shows if it's aligned or not, and the adjustments are basic, not to mention that shops have manuals that tell where the adjustments are if the mechanic doesn't know. I got mine aligned last August. Cost me $47.00. After cutting the front springs, replacing upper A-arms, upper balljoints, spring perches, idler arm arm bushing, and strut-rod bushings, I took it to the shop. They said the alignment was hardly out at all, and they had no trouble making the adjustments. I was quite pleased...
I'm with the "us e the older established shop" group. I've got a friend with a 69 Charger, He took it to one of our newer "chain" type shops, they couldn't align the front of the charger and called the local old shop and took the car to him themselves. Yeah they have manuels, but a lot of the time the book learned guys just can't match the hands on experienced guys! And how many times have you tried to order parts for your MAV/Comet and been told...My book doesn't go back that far? :confused:
