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Re: TR7BFH Inner Ball Joint installation

Subject: Re: TR7BFH Inner Ball Joint installation
From: Randall Young <randallyoung@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 11:56:21 -0700
Cc: spitlist@gte.net, british-cars@autox.team.net, triumphs@autox.team.net
References: <010523133557.2f404360@lmsb.tamu.edu>
Lee Daniels wrote:
> 
> If there is slop in the rack, then the alignment shop won't get
> it right either.

Yes, but the point is that he is _replacing_ the sloppy rack.  The slop
in the old one means he cannot get a good reference for the laser
pointers, but hopefully the new rack won't have excessive slop, so a
good alignment _would_ be possible.

With a little ingenuity and a visit to the local lumber yard, it's not
too hard to build your own toe-in gage, and do your own alignment.  And
a camber gage can be made from a carpenter's square, a pair of 6" rules,
and a pair of C-clamps ...  

Accuracy is at least as good as that achieved by the average droid at
the alignment shop ! (Dya wan fries wi that ?)

True story : I once bought a car from a friend that had recently had the
front struts replaced at a local service chain.  The shop apparently
lost the special metric bolt that clamped the vertical link to the lower
ball joint, and replaced it with a common SAE bolt of smaller diameter
(but didn't replace the nut).  Of course, the mismatched threads didn't
hold, and the smaller bolt let the joint slip apart, the result being
that the front end literally fell apart in the middle of the street
about a month later!  Fortunately, I was only doing 35 mph at the time,
and the lower A-frame hit the inside of the wheel rim instead of falling
onto the street.  No permanent damage to vehicle or occupants.  If I had
been doing a freeway off-ramp at the time, the result might've been
quite different !

There's a reason I do all my own work ...

Randall

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