Got an alignment done today - interesting results

[Stainless]

I had my steering rack professionally rebuilt by our friends at PJ Grady last year and I finally got the car put back together enough to drive it. I scheduled an alignment and got it done this morning. I had it done at a tire chain in my area called Les Schwab, and an older gentleman tasked with the job was great to work with. After he got it on the rack, he came and grabbed me to try and better figure out some things, and we went to the shop to take a look at the setup.

He wanted to confirm that we were just going to be adjusting toe-in as the caster and camber were not adjustable on my car. I have the DPI lower control arm braces and I explained their function while we were under the car. I also brought some trailing arms shims, in case anything needed to be adjusted on the rear, but that was still great from when the last alignment had been done back in the 2000s. I was glad to not have to touch the rear trailing arm bolts.

He was curious how it drove down the road with the current caster and camber set, and I told him it drove straight with no pulling. My two main concerns were to have the rack centered so that it had equal amounts of right and left turn, because prior to the rack rebuild, it turned much more sharply one way than the other. As long as I got back to equal turning both directions, I didn't care how straight the steering wheel ended up as I suspect that it had been removed and adjusted at some point in the car's long life. My suspicion was likely correct because once he had it centered and and aligned, the steering wheel is slightly off center, turned to about 1 o'clock instead of noon. I will be happy to remove it at some point and straighten it out, but it's close enough for now that I'm in no rush.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to post my alignment results and would be curious to see how they compare to any other cars.

Here are a few unique things about my setup: My car has lowering springs in the front from Ed Uding that have been on the car since 2008, stock upper control arms, aluminum lower control arms from Special T from 2008, poly sway bar bushings from DMCNW from 2016, a shock tower strut bar from DMCNW from 2007, a Gen 6 lower arm support kit from DPI from 2024, and Spax shocks from 2022.

The car has been off the road so long while I've worked on so many parts of the car that this is the first that I've been able to drive it with the lower arm supports in combination with the Spax shocks. All that, in conjunction with a rebuilt steering rack, and the steering feels SOLID.
PXL_20250414_195809354.MP.jpg

He was able to get the toe so that it's in the "green," so I'm hopeful that it will drive like a dream for the foreseeable future.

[Rich]

That's a decent report about solving a common problem regarding how to equalize the turning radius in both directions. Glad you managed to sort that one out. No DeLorean with OE size front tires should have unequal turning radius left-right. I've seen Ds with such cockeyed steering that the front of the left or right tire will rub on the front sway bar at full steering lock. Not good.

This note isn't about the alignment number comparo you asked for.

Your alignment shop left you with a half-hearted solution regarding the straight ahead steering wheel position. There's no reason the left and right tie rod ends can't be adjusted to get the steering wheel to be at the 12 noon position with the wheels aimed straight ahead. I installed a replacement rack about 5 years ago. The alignment shop took care of the straight steering wheel position easily.

Remember these cars came from the factory with the steering adjusted correctly. Nothing about a correctly rebuilt rack should prevent that..

If you leave it as is then after a while you might get tired of the crooked wheel. With it pointing straight it's easy for you to drive while gripping the wheel in both hands at 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions with your thumbs fingers or thumbs just above both spokes of the wheel. Hard to do that on a long straight road with the wheel pointing off-center. Better to get it sorted out sooner than later.

As long as I got back to equal turning both directions, I didn't care how straight the steering wheel ended up as I suspect that it had been removed and adjusted at some point in the car's long life. My suspicion was likely correct because once he had it centered and and aligned, the steering wheel is slightly off center, turned to about 1 o'clock instead of noon. I will be happy to remove it at some point and straighten it out, but it's close enough for now that I'm in no rush.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to post my alignment results and would be curious to see how they compare to any other cars.

[Josh]

I would say the caster up front is fairly excessive, the car will track much better at speed if you get that sorted out and within the range. You are below the minimum (which is already low) on the DS, and above the maximum on the PS. Honestly though having 5deg of caster on both sides would be fine. A pair of adjustable upper control arms would be required to sort this out.

My car had a similar cross caster issue (2.5 deg) and this prompted me to install adjustable UCAs, and it was a big difference.

The camber in the rear indicates to me that your car is lowered a substantial amount? The biggest concern here is wearing your tires unevenly inside to outside, other than that the car will drive just fine. This would require adjustable upper OR lower links. It does concern me that side to side the camber is doubled, Is the car noticeably sitting lower on one side to the other? are the bushings OK?

[BladeBronson]

Your alignment shop left you with a half-hearted solution regarding the straight ahead steering wheel position. There's no reason the left and right tie rod ends can't be adjusted to get the steering wheel to be at the 12 noon position with the wheels aimed straight ahead. I installed a replacement rack about 5 years ago. The alignment shop took care of the straight steering wheel position easily.

It seems like adjusting the tie rod ends to center the wheel would cause asymmetry in the amount of steering left/right? If I understand it correctly, the only way you'll have a centered rack and a centered steering wheel is if you just so happen to connect the steering column to the rack with the exact right splines aligned. Otherwise, the fairly simple solution is to get the rack centered and then pull the steering wheel and set it on the correct splines.

But.... I usually yield to Rich as he's mostly right all the time!

[Josh]

It seems like adjusting the tie rod ends to center the wheel would cause asymmetry in the amount of steering left/right? If I understand it correctly, the only way you'll have a centered rack and a centered steering wheel is if you just so happen to connect the steering column to the rack with the exact right splines aligned. Otherwise, the fairly simple solution is to get the rack centered and then pull the steering wheel and set it on the correct splines.

But.... I usually yield to Rich as he's mostly right all the time!

Yes, you can center the steering wheel via the outer tie rods, however it is not the best way to do it. most alignment techs are not going to pull the wheel off as most cars have airbags.

WHen I get an alignment done I tell them to ignore the steering wheel location and do their best to center the tie rod ends.Then I pull the wheel off and recenter afterwards.

[Rich]

Thanks for the funny vote of confidence there, Christian.

As long as there are still enough threads engaged on both tie rod ends after the adjustment it's fine to center the wheel that way - being sure to rotate each of the two tie rod adj nuts the exact same number of turns in the correct direction on each side. This preserves the toe-in setting. By "enough threads" I mean at least 1 rod diameter's worth of threads between any threaded steering rod and its adjustment sleeve. It's something the alignment tech can do easily. Maybe the thread engagement limit made that difficult.

If that's the case then the owner can pull off the left access panel in the trunk to easily reach the steering shaft joints and re-orient the shaft by one or two splines to get the wheel closer to centered. Again, no effect on the toe setting. It's easier than pulling the steering wheel. But that method prevents a fine adjustment since it goes in spline-by-spline increments in which case it's back to the alignment shop afterward to nail it.

Going back to the problem itself there's an additional reason to center the wheel. With the wheel set off-center the turn signal canceling link won't work the same way after left and right turns. It will work, just not always when expected.

It seems like adjusting the tie rod ends to center the wheel would cause asymmetry in the amount of steering left/right? If I understand it correctly, the only way you'll have a centered rack and a centered steering wheel is if you just so happen to connect the steering column to the rack with the exact right splines aligned. Otherwise, the fairly simple solution is to get the rack centered and then pull the steering wheel and set it on the correct splines.

But.... I usually yield to Rich as he's mostly right all the time!

[Josh]

Thanks for the funny vote of confidence there, Christian.

As long as there are still enough threads engaged on both tie rod ends after the adjustment it's fine to center the wheel that way - being sure to rotate each of the two tie rod adj nuts the exact same number of turns in the correct direction on each side. This preserves the toe-in setting. By "enough threads" I mean at least 1 rod diameter's worth of threads between any threaded steering rod and its adjustment sleeve. It's something the alignment tech can do easily. Maybe the thread engagement limit made that difficult.

If that's the case then the owner can pull off the left access panel in the trunk to easily reach the steering shaft joints and re-orient the shaft by one or two splines to get the wheel closer to centered. Again, no effect on the toe setting. It's easier than pulling the steering wheel. But that method prevents a fine adjustment since it goes in spline-by-spline increments in which case it's back to the alignment shop afterward to nail it.

Going back to the problem itself there's an additional reason to center the wheel. With the wheel set off-center the turn signal canceling link won't work the same way after left and right turns. It will work, just not always when expected.

Pulling the steering shaft is exceedingly more difficult that pulling the steering wheel. If you have a steering wheel puller it is a 5 minute operation at most, and you are only removing one nut.
Removing the access panel (or wheel), then fighting with a potentially rusted u joint, then re-installing the u-joint without pushing the shaft back into the column... this can easily take over an hour on many cars.