How wheel alignment was done in the 1960´s?

I got a vintage Dunlop optical alignment tool that I am not sure how to use, but today I set out to figure out how!
The Lancia A112 Abarth for toe in issues. Its wearing my tires and makes it very twitchy on rain.
Lets fix it!
#wheelalignment #alignment #lancia
Instagram: / seasidegarageyt
Patreon: / seasidegarage

[@grayfool]

You got it right. The Dunlop gauge is fine for getting to toe in correct. That bit of kit is all we had back in the dim distant past. It works fine.

[@stogmot1]

i love my Dunlop gauge , use it every week in my busy workshop , never goes wrong ,no lasers ,no computers ,no flashy printouts to scare / bullshit the customer . Its accurate ,its reliable .

[@steverandall5814]

No laser beams, no computers, no video displays, just old-school measurements and calculations. This is how our parents and grandparents did it back in the day, back when you had to think about what you were doing, not just turn the adjuster until the green light comes on.

[@Stella_Bella_boo]

I've had to do it like this myself 😂 now work for FORD and its so much easier with electronics 😂

[@steverandall5814]

@@Stella_Bella_boo I'm sure it is, but would you agree that the skill level needed to do a good job is much lower?

[@Stella_Bella_boo]

@@steverandall5814 yup , you can teach anyone to do it now 🤣

[@westmus]

I'm fairly sure that if you go to the pit of a race track you will see the mechanics use similar simple tools to align race cars. The precision are perfectly good, it just takes more effort to use than the modern computer run gear.

[@steverandall5814]

@@westmus I think that has to do with size and portability.

[@MakeDoAndMend1]

My Father used to place newspaper in front of the tyres and drive over them. By looking at the creases in paper he knew which way to adjust the track rod ends. Simple but effective. Cheers from George

[@SeasideGarage]

Clever! But it will only be ball park... which is often good enough... :)

[@davekay5055]

Your perseverance is admirable. Not only are you using old and superseded instruments & measurements, but it is all done in a foreign (to you) language. Long may your excellent videos continue.

[@SeasideGarage]

Yea.... I never will fully understand Math.... and english... :P Thanks!

[@chrissmith7655]

Hi, for a Dane working in imperial sizes who has been using metric all is life you did wonderfully well with very little information . Many thanks from the UK.

[@SeasideGarage]

Thanks... ;)

[@TheGreatGastronaut]

The simple optics principle being employed is called collimation and this alignment tool is an adaptation of a classic autocollimator instrument, which is basically shining a beam of light exactly back down the path it arrived. A huge improvement could be gained by mounting a cheap laser pointer as a light source that is collimated to detect the misalignment.

[@iainmacknish5220]

You can't beat an old set of dunlop gauges.

[@leslieaustin151]

WooHoo! That was a blast from the past! The garage where I worked in the 60s got one of those Dunlop Toe-in gauges and we thought it a wonderful improvement over the older method using a stand with pointers on it, which was put behind the wheels, adjusted to touch, then put in front of the front wheels, where it would show the toe-in. Nothing wrong with old school if it’s used properly, but I admire your persistence in checking your findings! Les in UK

[@harryharker9564]

Love the working out how to use the old school tools.Brings back 40 years old memories.

[@ovalwingnut]

InTeReStiNg and Very COoL. Love the car and your sweet garage. Thank you.

[@jeffr0]

very fascinating how all 3 old tools gave the same info. we think we are so smart with our computers and yet those old timers figured it out long ago.

[@SeasideGarage]

Yes! Its very cool!

[@MrHenke56]

I think you save a fortune to use those old alignment tools. I have a friend mechanic who said that to calibrate his Bosch alignment station costs around 1000 euros (if my memory works). They send a guy that will put in a computer and just calibrate it and then send you a check. So even the digital ones wont give you a 100%, there i think the oldschool ones lies less haha. Great video as always! Very intresting :)

[@Andy-sh9eq]

It's degrees because you are measuring angles, if its inches then it's really really old, i used to use a set of dunlop gauges in the 1980's and they were in degrees and minutes.

[@rubberduck4966]

Indeed - only at his specific setup this also matches the inches between the front/back of the tyre - completely different on different sized rims (measuring on the tyres is not a good idea)

[@dimopac6579]

Fantastisk værktøj. 😊

[@gsp911]

Nice little car. My very first car was a 1973 A112E. I loved that little car, it never broke down, always running. I sold it in 1987 but I still remember the registration number. 😁

[@CollectorOfThings]

The second tool is designed to be put on the tyre, you then roll the whole car with the bar attached to read the difference (the end should be spring loaded) Also using the Dunlop it is good to measure at least twice, rolling the car to use a different spot of the rim to allow for runout/bent rims and averaging the value.

[@CollectorOfThings]

here is a video on one by another manufacturer which is still sold kzbin.info/www/bejne/eJTVkpKnjth9bMk

[@SeasideGarage]

Ah ! Clever! Of course!

[@MikkoRantalainen]

To adjust toe angles only, all you need is a tape measure. Check the distance from tyre groove (obviously you have to use straight groove edge for this one) on the rear edge of the tyre and front edge to the opposite site. The difference between the measurements between front edge of the tyre and rear edge of the tyre should be within 2 mm. Typically you should have slight toe-in so the rear edge measurement should be about 1 mm longer than the front edge measurement. The closer to zero you go, the better it's for traction but if you go too close to zero, the abilitity to self-center the steering may suffer a lot. The reason you should use the tyre groove for the measurement instead of the wheel is that the tyre is the part that's actually touching the road and the edge of the groove is typically easier to measure accurately with a tape measure. Update: It seems that the measurement bar method you displayed later in the video is basically the same idea, just using a metal bar instead of measurement tape. Your manual claimed 2.5 mm toe-in but I'd recommend trying 1 mm toe-in and see how it feels to drive.

[@delukxy]

Just press the in/mm button on your calliper to switch between the forms of measurement. Once you think you have the toe correct you can cheat and take it to a garage that offers a free alignment check.

[@andrewstewart8704]

Awesome! love these tools!

[@twocvbloke]

A good tip is to avoid toes getting in the wheels in the first place... :P Jokes aside, it's always interesting seeing the old kit being used, given how people today take for granted their computerised digital displayed numbers machines, when once people actually used their brains to work out what they needed to do in order to set things up properly with the tracking... :)

[@jjtorley627]

Great video!

[@lesklower7281]

Can't wait for the next video

[@motoretro1972]

A hot car, great tools and a cool mechanic.🔧👍

[@SeasideGarage]

:D thanks!

[@westmus]

I got the very same toe stick, an old Dunlop caster/camper tool kit and similar old turn tables. Works great. It all comes from the attic space of an old (also danish) garage opened in the early 60s. I'm fairly sure you are ment to roll the car with the stick attached, so you meassure the difference on the exact same spot on the tire and by that remove the wheel/tire inaccuracies from the measure.

[@Mickhanic-garage]

You are doing it right, set the wheel size on the car wheels then check them together to get a zero reading. Used these a lot and always seemed to be accurate enough.

[@SeasideGarage]

Clever tool! :D

[@janerikkant3646]

The way it is setup and used it can only be degrees. Imagine you use it on a different sized rim. If the toe-in/out angle would be the same, the way the tool is used it would indicate the same value, but the amount of toe-in/out in inches (or mm) would be different.

[@CarlosSilva-gc8ny]

@janerikkant3646, Who would think of having a car with different size front tires? In principle that is totally absurd.

[@janerikkant3646]

@@CarlosSilva-gc8ny I may not have used unambiguously wording. What I meant was 2 same sized rims but a different size than before. Then, if the angle would stay the same, the outcome in mm would be different.

[@petersunderland1312]

Toe in used to be given in sixteenths of an inch(1/16 =1.6mm) the 1 Mark could be 1/4 of inch (6.4mm)

[@matthewwiddows6319]

Angular values are popular in that they are not reliant on wheel sizes (rims), nevertheless in certain instances the values of TOE are given in Millimetres. When this format is used then it is imperative that the wheel sizes (rim) are known, simply for the fact that as one moves away from a given point on the wheel (normally the centre) then the millimetre value will increase the further one moves off the centre. If the wheel (rim) size is used then the point of measurement becomes fixed.

[@LesterLovesWatches]

You put your left toe in, right toe out In…out…shake it all about!

[@mastermnd22]

Very cool. But I feel like tape measure method works much easier

[@DetroitMicroSound]

If it's old Dunlop, it's definitely using the Imperial system. 2/8 is a 1/4 inch. otherwise known as 1/4". (foot denoted by: ' and inch denoted by: ") The U.K. didn't go to the metric system til 1964, and many companies kept right on producing imperial measurment tools, and fasteners, for quite a long time. Some still do. We still have Imperial everywhere in the U.S. We use both. You really need both sets of tools in your garage, to work on old British cars, and bikes, or American vehicles properly. Unless you're talking old-timey 5-sided fasteners.

[@madmanmapper]

7mm is about 9/32 inch. Not really 1/2 inch. I'd say the Dunlop gauge is in degrees.

[@user-qm5uh2vv5s]

Кто то до сих пор сход развал так делает, метод на века

[@jasonschlencker8108]

Great vid and great gadget. It looks to me that it might be reading degrees? 7mm at 1m past a fulcrum = 0.63 of a degree. 2mm = 0.18 of a degree. Regards, Jas. VK4FJGS Rocky Qld.

[@SeasideGarage]

Im really unsure about that... wish I could get a manual for this! I am sure that the newer ones are degrees, but really unsure about this... Thanks!

[@evancrouch9939]

That’s called a periscope

[@chilleddriving1455]

What kind of car would fit on that lift? 😮

[@TheJcman72]

That's a very interesting topic. I've seen some videos on the cheapest way to align the wheels with threads, and I managed to do it on my Renault 4L. But, my main question here is that all the toe in or out information is provided in length (metric or imperial) but in fact that should be an angle, because that's what it is! Where should be measured the length? Between the back and the front of the wheel (what I did) or at a a specific distance from the wheel center (based on the look of your tool)?

[@SeasideGarage]

Yea my gauge is a very old and basic one... seems to be in mm... later ones was in degrees :)

[@kosir1234]

which wheels are on this a112? :)

[@sween187]

Reverse periscope

[@annewhistleketle6350]

Still really liking your vids, keep up the good work! BTW, I did see the latest up and down, so funny intro he made. You have to return the favor ;)

[@SeasideGarage]

Thanks!... :) Haha Yes! being bacon is not the worst thing in the world!