Why the f*** can't anyone align a Mopar?

[375instroke]

If you work doing alignments every day, you should understand what an alignment is.  Why can't they see the eccentrics and see which way to turn them?  Maybe it's the stock specs that messes things up, but this is worse.  All I can figure, since the coupler and steering wheel both have master splines, is that the coupler was taken apart, and installed 180deg. out.  The car had a horrible turning radius going left, and I thought "I know these cars are big, but this is ridiculous."  Even though it has been 15 years since my last B-body, I know they should do better than this.  On right turns, the right tire touches the frame, so there definitely is something messed up.   To fix things, I turn the front eccentrics all the way out, and the rears in till the tire has about 3/8" of inward lean as measured between the top of the wheel lip and the bottom on a 14" rim.  This gives the most positive caster, and 1deg. negative camber.  I then count the turns lock to lock, and go half way back.  This puts the steering wheel upside down, and the tires turned to the right.  The left tie rod is then shortened, and the right one, which was at the end of its adjustment, is lengthened to turn the tires forward.  Then the toe is set to 1/16" in.  The car handles so much better now, in addition to being able to park.  Who's the dumb ass who would know enough to turn the tie rods, but not know enough to see how stupid that would be?

[Ghoste]

The biggest reason I found is because most of them won't take the time to properly set the ride height first with the torsion bars.

[b5blue]

Don't feel bad I got stuck with my car on the rack for 3 hours waiting for the computer screen to "warm up", then got charged 80 bucks only to find out they didn't start with adjusting the ride height and didn't tighten down the upper control arm cam bolts so buy the time I got home 4 hours later it was back out of adjustment and to top it off the guy who did the work made a crack about my "big steering wheel"!(all of this with the FSM open to alignment on the passenger seat)You got to find someone that was around before only MGs had rack and pinion! So yea I'm pickin up what your putting down Bro! Ghoste is right and if your tie rod adjusters ain't damn near the same side to side, somethings wrong!

[histoy]

I've moved around alot, and I stay away from the large alignment shops with the guys who only know how to align the newer model cars.   I check with the guys at the cruise-ins to find out who runs the older, smaller alignment shops and the street rod shops.  I've found that those guys are usually older and are more experienced at aligning our cars.

[FLG]

Last time i had it aligned it came out good but the idiot didnt tighten down my upper control arm bolt enough. Well i was having a little fun, going about 60-70 mph and then needed to do some hard breaking....front of the car dips down from it and BAM! upper control arm slides ALL the way up and thank god i had my hands good on the wheel cause the car wanted to make a u-turn. Went home and fixed it myself.

[Mike DC]

   
"Why the f*** can't anyone  ______ a Mopar?"    <--- This question applies pretty generally when dealing with modern repair shops.

[John_Kunkel]

This question could be applied to any procedure on any car, either the tech knows his s**t and applies his knowledge or he doesn't.

Just like a college degree, I've found that a sleeve full of "Master Tech" patches means nothing if the tech isn't really into what he's doing.

[StockMan]

I'm faced with a bit of a problem myself in this area.  On the driver side, where the upper control arm fits into the mount (where the cam bolts go through), there is about 1/16 or or so space between the insides of the control arm bushings to the inside mount bracket.  This causes the bracket to have to flex inward on both sides to pull tight upto the bushings on the control arm.  I needed to repair a crack in this bracket on one side so I'm thinking it might have been defective from the factory.  Like I say, I fixed the crack, but I'm not comfortable just tightening it as I'm afraid it will crack the mount again.  The way that bracket is designed it doesn't lent itself well to flexing.  What should I do with this.  Would you consider shimming it?  I don't think the issue would be the way the bushings were installed, they press in and bottom out I believe.  I'm thinking that the trouble with shimming is that it is important that the control arm bushing bite into this bracket so the bushing doesn't slip.  I would appreciate any advise on this.

[375instroke]

Could you get a picture?  I think I remember some upper control arm bushings with separate ends.  Maybe you are missing one of the ends.  Is there metal on both ends, or can you see rubber?

[StockMan]

I'll see if I can post a picture.  The bushings appear to be ok, they have the protruded markings that are intended to bite into each side of the mount after the cam bolts are torqued.  Its very odd, if I go ahead and tighten the bolts this way I'm sure the mount will crack again as it as it was before I repaired it.  I'm thinking of shimming it but I'm afraid the bushings will slip on the shim.  I believe the bushings are designed to bite into the metal a bit to prevent this.

[b5blue]

A 1/16 isn't allot but whatever you put in there is going to have to move along the slot for alignment, what if you use the old metal "head' of a bushing. Grind off the tube part and it should "nest" in the new one like a pre-formed washer...sort of...thing.

[StockMan]

Thanks for the advise.