Alignment Question

[djmcnary]

Hello all,

It appears that I too have fallen prey to the camber adjustment problem on my new (to me) 2003 MM. I took it in for a oil change and the dealer noted that I was beginning to show slight wear on the front inside tires (18K miles). From reading past threads, I have educated myself concerning the possibility of scratching the factory rims, without the use of the proper adaptors during the alignment. My dealer was straight up honest, and told me that they don't have the adaptors, and arn't planning on getting them. :(

I called a dealer in a neighboring town. He told me that their alignment tech had previously aligned MM front ends by deflating the front tires, and clipping the targets over the rims, between the bead and the rim, thus not scratching them.

Has anyone heard of this????

If the deflating thing is not a good idea, do you think that mounting a stock set of CV tires and rims or Marquis tires and rims and then aligning would work?

Any help, input, wisdom, guidance, thoughts, experience, etc.... is GREATLY appreciated! ;) ;)

Douglas

[Donny Carlson]

Hello all,

It appears that I too have fallen prey to the camber adjustment problem on my new (to me) 2003 MM. I took it in for a oil change and the dealer noted that I was beginning to show slight wear on the front inside tires (18K miles). From reading past threads, I have educated myself concerning the possibility of scratching the factory rims, without the use of the proper adaptors during the alignment. My dealer was straight up honest, and told me that they don't have the adaptors, and arn't planning on getting them. :(

Sounds just like my car and my dealer. I recommend you fix this soon, or you'll be buying new tires before you wanted to. I reccomend you find a good tire shop that handles other performance cars (porsche, corvettes, etc) and has the proper equipment. Make sure they have the specs for a Marauder, and know about the camber adjustment being hidden behind a removable plate.
Go to the Hunter web site http://209.176.154.132/ to locate a dealer near you with a GSP9700, and you'll be fixed up!

Or you should try a Ford SVT dealer, who should be able do this work no problem,

[djmcnary]

Well,

I checked the link, and it appears that the Dealer that I went to, has the proper machine, just not the correct adaptors :mad: !

Thanks to your link, I will check with some of the other garages/dealers listed and see if I can find one to accomodate me.

Thanks,

Douglas

[Thomas C Potter]

I have read here that others have used std CV/GMq wheels for align.
I recommend going with neg 0.3 degrees rather than neg 0.7.

TP

[valleyman]

I just had my front end aligned -- I let it go too long (13K) and suffered the "dreaded inner tire wear." The Hunter 311 machine appears to be able to handle our rims, at least with a tech who cares. After much phoning and running around I went to two different shops that had the Hunter 311. The guy at the first shop had never seen a Marauder before but assured me the clips ("targets"?) would not damage my rims and tried to get me to leave the car. Not satisfied, I went to another highly recommended tire shop and they too had the Hunter 311. However, as soon as I drove into the bay and got out of the car, one of the techs says, "Is that a Marauder?" Good sign.

This tech looked at the wheels and said he was pretty sure he could get the clips/targets used on the 311 in between the tire and the wheel without damaging the wheels, but couldn't say for sure because he had never worked on a MM before. After I recounted the problems other owners on this site have reported and why I was so concerned, he said if he had any problems he'd try deflating the tires or just using a soapy solution as a lubricant to get the target/clip between the tire and the rim. He said he'd make sure the rims were not damaged.

Two hours later, front end aligned, rims still perfect. Tech reported it was not necessary to deflate tires, just needed a little soap to help slip the targets/clips onto the wheels. The hardware on the 311, if applied with a little care, does NOT damage MM rims.

[David Morton]

I cut my teeth setting front-ends and had a good background in 3D geometry so when the service manager told me I was the best front-end man he'd ever seen I knew he was right. I heard of the wear problem before I got the car and went in under warranty the week I got it. I said it "pulled".

Negative camber is something I've always thought belongs on a car that runs at Daytona Speedway, where the surface has a road dish shape and not a crown. Roads for public use usually have a crown to shed water and negative camber is guaranteed to put more pressure on the inside of the tire, hell, zero camber does that.

But, the panther platform's geometry is set up to use a negative camber so here's what I asked for, and got for a $5 tip to the tech.

Camber: L = 0.0 - R = -0.1
Caster: L = 5.0 - R = 5.2

0.0 was the factory limit allowed for camber. 6.0 was target for caster but the guy said he had to lower that to get the camber up to 0.0, I believed him. 5.0 might not track straight ahead as well but it lifts the inside of the front-end less in the turns making it flatter in the curves. I've had no problem with the car wanting to go straight. It handles very good and I expect to get good wear.

[mtnh]

David,

did you elect to go with the negative toe from the stock setup? Isn't it true that a negative toe will also munch on inner tire tread. Don't leave us hanging, you gave us caster and camber. Please do tell what you used for toe. Them tires sure had alot of tread left on them in the middle and outer area when I had to scrap them in May.

Mike

[David Morton]

David,

did you elect to go with the negative toe from the stock setup? Isn't it true that a negative toe will also munch on inner tire tread. Don't leave us hanging, you gave us caster and camber. Please do tell what you used for toe. Them tires sure had alot of tread left on them in the middle and outer area when I had to scrap them in May.

MikeToe is -.11". True, in conjunction with negative camber, not enough toe will exacerbate the wear but the most important thing that my experience has shown toe to affect is braking. Too much toe and the fronts wear out pretty fast but the car will stop on a dime and give you 4c change. Not enough and it'll wander in a stop. I had to get my sheet out to be sure of this figure and I was way off on the caster, I think it's what the guy told me he might have to do to get the camber down that I posted earlier. Here's what the sheet I have in my hand right now says...

Before...
Camber: L-.08 R-0.9
Caster : L 6.1 R 6.5
Toe -0.13
Steer Ahead -0.02

After...
Camber: L-0.1 R-0.2
Caster : L 6.1 R 6.1
Toe -0.11
Steer Ahead 0.0

I remember "Set Back" used to refer to the front wheel that was closer to the rear axle than the other and does affect the pulling action of the Caster. Other than it being a new terminology for "set back" I have no idea what "Steer Ahead" is. Being zero now I don't care.

Spec range on his computer says...

Camber -1.4 to 0.2 degrees
Caster 5.6 to 7.1 degrees
Toe -0.37" to 0.13"
Steer Ahead -0.05" to 0.05"

This front end is dead neutral and I love the way it feels and steers. Coming up on 3000 miles soon. I'll let you guys know if I see anything unusual. Right now I think I'm going to be buying rears x3 for fronts as they are noticeably thinner. Maybe I'll measure them tomorrow with my tread wear indicator if I think about it and post it here tomorrow.