What is Wheel Alignment for a Custom Car?

Series Summary

Impressive engines and creative shapes are what grab the most attention at hot rod shows and rallies. But what good is your great looking, super-fast car if it doesn't steer correctly? You'll end up in a ditch on the side of the race track or flying off the side of the road with the wrong wheel alignment. What good is your cool ride all twisted and mangled? In this free series of custom car repair and restoration videos, our hot rod expert demonstrates how to adjust the wheel alignment of your custom car. Doug Jenkins has been building and repairing cars since he was 14. Now he shares his extensive expertise in this series filmed at his body shop in St. Louis. He begins with an overview of the various kinds of wheel alignment systems, such as the old-style wheel suspension and the more modern rack-and-pinion system. He also talks about camber and caster in your steering system and how to measure and adjust them. You will also learn how to adjust the control arm and toe-in of your tires. Does your steering wheel pull after all of these other adjustments? Doug has the solution for that, as well. Just watch these free restoration videos, and you will know all you need to know about adjusting the steering system in your hot rod.

Video Transcript

"DOUG JENKINS: Hi, I'm Doug. I work with twenty great guys in St. Louis at Doug Jenkins Custom Hot Rods. We're getting close to finishing up the collision repair on this '32 Ford. It got hit real hard. Broke the body, broke the frame. We've sectioned the frame right where the firewall is and put on a new section of frame from there forward. Everything's back assembled, most of the paintwork is complete. You can see little odds and ends. The next thing were going to do on this, though, is align the front end. When we replace the frame section on this car, we put it on our frame rack and got everything lined up perfectly, welded in the new sections of frame, and put braces in the frame at that point. So we now know that our frame rails are both parallel to one another, they're both parallel to the ground. The ends are plumb. The car has a perfect frame that's rigid and strong, and good for the application, and we need to adjust so that the front wheels will be adjusted both the camber, the caster, which affects the mounting points of the upper and lower ball joints and how they are relative to the ground, and the tow-in of the car."