Posted By : John Davies, 04-Jul-2004,
08:09pm
Jeremy,
have you reason to suspect distortion, evidence of an old accident or significant repairs to the chassis, for instance? If not, I doubt if there is a
problem.
You can check for squareness and twist yourself, if you can put the chassis over a level floor, the flatter the better.
Squareness.
With a plumb line (or large nut on a piece of string), mark the floor below a number of known points, symmetrical from side to side. Don't just use the
chassis extentions - they may have been replaced crooked - use points on the chassis rails as well.
Mark diagonals between each pair of points and the next. A line through the points where the diagonals cross should go through ALL the crosses.
(NB - mark long lines on the floor with a chalk line. This can be a piece of string, rubbed well with a blackboard chalk, or you can buy a line at a
hardware store. Have an assitant hold each end, tight on the end marks, then 'twang' the string. Much better than struggling with a tape measure!)
Twist.
Support the car, or the bare chassis, on axle stands and measure the height from the floor at the same points. Symmetrical points, as above, should be
the same height . Axle stands may not be the same height, so if the points ARE at different heights, the difference should be the same at different
pairs of points.
John