The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop need alignment advise

My front tires on my 66SWB are starting to feather on the outside with only 800 miles. My front has a 3" dropped spindle front, 4" coil rear, and 275 X 20 tires. My alignment mechanic set the alignment to factory spec and now suggested to post this
if any of you have a simmilar set-up and can advise on how much to tweek the adjustment. Thanks

I'm not familiar with modified suspensions but feathering is generally toe-in being off. If you want to make shure your alignment man is being straight with you you can check the toe-in & camber yourself. There has been many discussions on setting the toe before so you might do a search. If you can't find anything & want to do it ,post it & one of us will tell how it's done. You can get a pretty good idea on the camber by putting a level on the side of the tires with the wheels straight ahead & the truck setting on level ground. They should be near straight up.

With the modifications you've described, there is no way to align the wheels properly. The best you can expect will be to track a reasonably straight line down a smooth road, with absolutely no guarantees what will happen in a tight turn, or when making a quick movement to avoid an unexpected hazard.

Highly-modified vehicles with outrageously oversized wheels should be limited to private property, like car shows, with NO travel allowed on public roads. They're dangerous to the rest of us who have to use the public highways.
Jerry

Thanks for the tips wrenchbender. Hotrod, my truck tracks straight, turns well, and the tires are 1/2" larger diam. than stock, if it were a menace on the road I wouldn't have built for my kid.

i agree with joe,take it to someone that knows what theyre doing. probly take some research but theyre out there.............dave

Ave, It sounds like your toe in is way!!! off. With feathering
on the outside, it is toed-out. A simple check, park on a
flat, fairly level surface. Get out your steel 6ft tape
measure and measure the distance the front tires are apart
from each other in front of the axle at about 6 in. off the
ground. Then measure how far the front tires are apart from
each other behind the axle about 6 in. off the ground. These
two measurements should be very close to each other, with
the rear measurement only slightly larger by only
1/16th '' or so. If you find this not to be so, go back
and have the shop correct the toe in....