Anticipation

[opus10583]

Personal day off, 65deg at 9am; waiting for the alignment shop to call...

[Exit98]

I know the feeling. Hope it goes well.

I'm dying to sneak out this afternoon. I'm just a few hours from getting back on the road after 2 months.

[opus10583]

ArrrgHHHH!

[narfire]

Happy day Forcast is for a nice few days... temp perhaps to 60 deg F so I picked up the insurance this am... Finally no snow and the roads people are starting to sweep the roads of the 10,000 yards of gravel put on the roads the previous 5 months.
Chris

[opus10583]

No joy here.

They' had to send out for thicker shims to get me negative camber and dial in the caster.

Tomorrow is chance of showers, Sunday is showers likely.

Ciao,
Mark

[RoyBatty]

Send out for shims??!
I bought the shims to do the alignment on my car at the local O'reilly and NAPA stores.
They are available on the "HELP" racks. I bought three variety packs and had all the shims I needed to bring in the alignment in my driveway after replacing my crossmember and A-arms.

I only decided to do the alignment myself after being told by one repair shop that the cost of the alignment depended upon the parts. I asked the tech I was speaking to "what parts?" He stated that they might not have the correct shims, And they might have to order them and it could cost extra. I had a hard time not rolling my eyes right then and there.
I did ask him to verify that he was speaking of the little shims that slide over the A-arm bolts and he said yes.

It was at that point I decided to undertake the alignment myself, after refreshing my memory from the days when I used to do this on my old '72 RS Camaro. All the principles are the same. It took me a couple hours to get the camber, caster and toe with the wheel centered. But I was able to bring all specs in and the car drives great.
My Fiat tech advisor, Sergio, runs a repair shop for an Infiniti dealership in the North SF Bay Area. He grew up working on Fiats the same way I did working on Chevys. I had him drive my car the other day for an evaluation of the various repairs I've made. He came back smiling and stated that my Spider drives greats and that he was jealous and wishes he had a Spider again.

[spidernut]

Roy,

What tools do you have to measure camber and tow in? I had my car aligned (took the alignment show over 2 hours due to ignorance) and I'm not thrilled with it. It's going to have to go back again to be aligned right.

[RoyBatty]

I used a digital level and a long strip of aluminum stock.

[opus10583]

Send out for shims??!
I bought the shims to do the alignment on my car at the local O'reilly and NAPA stores.
They are available on the "HELP" racks. I bought three variety packs and had all the shims I needed to bring in the alignment in my driveway after replacing my crossmember and A-arms.

In all fairness, they weren't working in an Autozone parking lot and traffic around here was insane yesterday afternoon.

I'd always rather slow and well over fast and shoddy.

Thanks,
Mark