I Attempted a DIY Alignment So My Yugo Would Stop Trying to Kill Me
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
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Have any alignment tips? Want to tell me I did something wrong (I'm sure I did)? Let me know!
Honestly I really think that having a tire shop do it will save some headaches
You certainly have enough patience! Good job mate!
I was an alignment technician back in the day. When you lower the car, you should jounce the front and rear of the car to make sure the suspension isn't bound up. The first thing we would do is center the steering wheel and use a tool to lock it against the seat. We would also use a brake lock. The way you aligned it, you set the toe to the car. With an alignment machine, you measure the "thrust angle" of the rear wheels. You then set the toe using that measurement. This is because rear wheels aren't always in line with the center of the car.
Not a tip but you should take it to shop to see just how close you got
Look for a CV tool that stretches the boot next time, you can get them for a £10er and makes life much easier when you are trying to half ass things
I could imagine the look on someone's face when they got passed by a Hot Rod Yugo screaming up a storm of Italian 4 Cylinder Fury.
You should see yugos in Serbia with a 1.6l fiat engine that makes over 200hp then.
The same look as when they get passed by the maniac driving a regular Yugo screaming at full send
or hearing some idiot flooring it with a cherry bomb on their car cause yeah making the engine louder is a great way to get a cop to pull you over and then they cut to stupid thing off when they get tired of noise tickets
@@raven4k998 I feel bad for anyone that lives in a state where the cops actually tell you what you can and cannot do with your car lol
@@ARSZLB I feel bad that anybody feels the need to make their car louder in order to think they're cool
"HOT GLUE IS HOT!"- Loving these words of wisdom, keep them coming.
nice to know that hot glue is hot I'll keep that in mind if I ever use the stuff lol
Tips for hot glue, if you get a lump on you, just smear it around. This increases the surface area really fast and it cools really fast as a result. Props to Adam Savage for teaching me this one.
IT'S NOT TRYING TO KILL ME! Never change, Robert!
eyeball it then use a square and get it set square smart and it's works kind of
2:47 Clever camera tricks are clever
I love when you do stuff like this
Note the wheels @8:17 The effort and the little details that he puts into his videos are very nice
That's not a trick
He has clones.
help, I see twice, I have to go to the doctor ...
Yugo Boy! Went to an auto parts store and Asked-"I need a gas cap for a Yugo" and he said "Let me drive it first". Can't believe I've been waiting to say that for 20 years. Thanks. I align my H1 with"the string trick". Close enough.
Bonus point, what Blockbuster,featuring Bruce W. also featured a Yugo in a high speed (🤣😆🤣😅🏎) pursuit?
First correct answer wins a smug, self satisfied nerdy grin 😀
I don't get it (sorry, it will be me!)
@@Craig-wp3pz die hard with a vengeance. 5 gallon jug, 3 gallon jug Yadda yadda
@@martyn101101 petrol head nerd award 🏆 🏆 🏆
Enjoy your self indulgent grin, and hell, have a smirk too 😏
@@steven-vn9ui "....the trouble is, it takes so damn long...."
Type die hard Yugo in your search bar, and prepare for a laugh at the expense of a (admittedly, well compensated💰💰💰)Yugo owner
Years ago I took my then-girlfriend-now-wife's Ford Festiva cockroach for a wheel alignment. In made such a difference to the ease of steering that she thought I'd installed a power steering rack and demanded evidence that I hadn't.
I went to pick it up a little early and saw the fella take it off the jig, go for a test drive, return slightly more pale and try again. He said later that one element was 3.5x further out of adjustment than the next worst he'd ever seen.
"I don't know what I'm doing!"
God, that's refreshing to hear, some RUclipsrs (& no, it's not who you think) act like they know what they're doing, and the end result is disappointing. But here, I can sit back, watch, and feel good about the end result. Case in point: this alignment. It is good enough to get you around until you can get this car dialed in. I salute you!
at least the I don't know what I'm doing does not stop him from trying so he got that working for himself along with a great sense of humour
What a shame he doesn't have a giant hole in his floor to put an alignment rack in so he could've done his own full alignment properly!
Love the new video! And congratulations on making the yugo less murderous!
First thing I thought!
You mean the giant pit from old videos? He filled that a loooooong time ago.
@@TheMonarchofGold r/whoosh
yeah he had the hole for alignments and didn't even use it when he had it just filled it in so now no alignment hole
It's amazing how, all of us, every project, every time, need at least one reminder that Hot Glue is in fact, hot. Every damn time.
but but hot glue is Hot
Ive done a string alignment, its within 1/16th” of tolerance. The trick is to set, measure, set, measure, set, at least a 4 times. Go for a drive, reset your rig and do it again, and then, go for another drive and do it again. At this point, you will have done it 6 times, and provided your balljoints, shocks, tie rods and bushings aren’t worn out, you’ll notice that between the 5th and 6th time, the alignment will stay at what you set it. It will measure out exactly the same after a drive.
That’s when you are done. Its time consuming, but, its free.
The best part about getting an alignment at a shop is that you aren’t sitting in your car. So while you’re actually using the car it will be precisely out of alignment based on your body weight. If you do the alignment at home you can set weight in the driver seat and actually get it so good that it will never wear down your tires unevenly.
@@markm0000 Excelent point. In da old times car magazines even advised to put in bag of something to simulate driver's weight when doing alignment yourself :)
"This is a car, it doesn't have any toes." - words to live by!
so much better so much better it's not trying to kill me anymore I love that one he succeeded!
As a vintage VW bus guy, I've always just done it the way described in the "Idiot Book" and used 2 yardsticks. Done!
That book is so good, I think every kid who likes cars should read it whether they own an air-cooled VW or not. That's "How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive Forever: a Step By Step Guide for the Compleat (sic) Idiot" by John Muir. The illustrations are incredible. I would still be stuck by the side of the road downwind from a feedlot in Granby, CO without that book.
@@phoenixredux4262 I know guys with Peter Aschwanden illustration tattoos
@@Turk380 If I ever got a tattoo, it would be Aschwanden's top-down diagram of the cylinder numbers and firing order. (In my 1988 copy it's page 97, in the valve adjustment procedures.) Not sure where I'd get it, but somewhere I could see it!
When I saw the title of the video I wondered if he was going to use the yardsticks.
Yup, used that on my 69 bug and my 63 Dodge truck.
It’s funny how good this yugo sounds, very reminiscent of a Toyota 4AGE somehow
Well, the original engine is mostly a licensed copy of an old Fiat design, though this is the bored out twin carb version from an X1/9. You can get rally cams for these things, they're well loved Italian motors.
Yeah, the exhaust is quite unrestricted, and the carburetors appear to have less restrictive filters in them. All makes for a nice sound, intake and exhaust.
A 4 cylinder is going to sound like a 4 cylinder. The only things that will effect the sound is a valve timing via the cam or by using different shaped exhaust layouts.
I thought that myself! Maybe it has trumpet valves? I've never seen them much on other engines
@@AiOinc1 the 903cc that came with the yugo sounds awesome too, I have videos of it on my channel if you want !
Stick and two dangly bits will now be my go to description.
he gives it five miles till it splits open I say 4 what's your guess?
You did a pretty good job! For toe, the old method was a long measuring stick, you measure left to right from the same place in the tire groove in the front and the back of the tire - if you lookup the old way that alignments were done, the string method, it may help you out as well. You can also lookup "race car alignment" or "race pit alignments" for some other techniques
As a Student of carpentry my immediate thought was winding sticks.
my old mechanic would get hammered (he was a drunk) and then just straight up eyeball it. it was nearly perfect. i think it was a lifetime of getting hammered at 10am and working on beaters until the sun went down that gave him the ability to just eyeball alignment so accurately. he would always say to "take it to a real shop, i only eyeballed it" but i never did, and my tire wear was never bad enough to notice it wasn't perfectly aligned until the tire was almost dead anyway
I had a Datsun 510 station wagon whose alignment would drift away and finally started doing it myself with methods discussed here. Tire wear was vanquished, and I was tickled I did it myself - it was getting expensive, and I was fighting for scratch in those days.
My single greatest automotive achievement is the time I completely replaced the suspension of a car - all 4 corners, wild-ass-guessed at the alignment with zero measuring or really even looking at it, drove it to the alignment shop and gave them $150 to shoot fancy laser beams at it and tell me that I had, somehow, literally hit every parameter dead-nuts-on.
I kinda hope they gave you the money back at that point. That's impressive.
bet you can't do it again
@@edwardknox2213 almost assuredly not. Pure luck
Luvky you
Editing as always on point. I love this so much!
well at least he tried
big MyMechanics energy with the "I make a new one" on that little sleeve... Awesome to see lathe action! 😁👍
As a mymechanics fan, I understood that reference
Hey dev, just progressing my internet stalking of you, love your work!
@@cdmonmcginn7561 thanks! 👍😁
This does so remind me of something I might have done on one of my beater mobiles. My god we did need a win on this channel after so many Wego fails, electric go cart fails. Roberts exclamation of "So much better! So much better! It's not trying to kill me constantly!" Is tantamount to young Doc Brown looking at the flux capacitor and exclaiming "It works! I finally invented something that works!" Your joy over such simple wins is just so infectious! OK, now I'm off to rebuilt the carb on my snowblower. See if I can pull off a win like Robert.
11:47 Now that is a Happy little Yugo. I have flashbacks to y moms old 77 Corolla.
Heey my cool fellow. Just a friendly suggestion:
When you machine a sleeve, for a hole you plan on welding said sleeve in- leave a skirt on the sleeve, so you can weld the skirt and not distort the bejesus out of the sleeve. Or don't, whatever :)
Love
I know nothing Alexander .
he floors it and is like (it's not trying to kill me woot hoot)
Always a pleasure to watch you fix cars while not knowing anything about them myself and learning a few bits here and there. Clever camera tricks and jokes are a big reason I love watching you Robert.
PS: and birbs too 😄
oww Hot glue is Hot! who would have thought?🤣😂🤣
I wouldn't bother with taking it to an alignment shop, they're not going to know what specs to aim for so it'll just be guesswork on their part anyway. you can do a much better job by simply adjusting by feel, i'll bet it feels slightly woolly at the moment, toeing in slightly should sharpen her up nicely, start by screwing the tie rods out 1 turn each side, and trying it out. if it's currently a bit darty/sharp (especially on the gas) then you'll want to toe her out a bit as the front suspension is flapping about under acceleration!
You'll learn a load by doing it and you can get very good results by just tuning by feel, it's kinda fun too!
There are factory settings but they are out of the window with such tires. Also, in factory adjusting was done with a pole tool between the wheels (front and back of inner parts of tires) in about 30 secs.
The advantage to taking it to a shop is accuracy and repeatability. They can set the alignment to a baseline, then he can tweak it until it "feels right", and the shop can measure it again so in the future if he needs the alignment redone they (or any other shop) can do it easy peasy because now he has the numbers.
That Yugo sounds so good, you should put a microphone under the hood and make a 10-minute video of you just driving it around! That would make this the first automotive/engineering/poultry/ASMR channel in RUclips's history!
Probably not the first
Don't give up on the Yugo! I hope whoever buys it uploads the rest of the restoration. It's been an interesting rebuild!
Oh wow, that thing sounds incredible
This little Yugo sounds way better than it has any right too. Great job on the alignment Robert!
I’m loving this little rorty Yugo! Great fun little buzz-box. I cannot believe $200 for an alignment over there! Full 4-wheel alignment in the UK is about £40 and some places even offer it as a free safety check before winter!
I have an 80s ford bronco and a front end alignment was $600 because I needed some bushings that set the camber replaced
@@jbatic8094 oof! Not a happy surprise 😮
Your edits are so good you’re really clever and funny with them in ways that really impress someone who’s been watching RUclips for many years. You’re a pro keep up the great work
A welcome dose of common sense. I remember many years ago taking my Reliant Scimitar to a tyre shop where they measured the distance between the wheel rims at the back of the wheel and then adjusted the track rod until the front rim was the same as the rear (had been). I couldn't convince Einstein that he should have halved the error until I made him measure the rear again. After this I made a sophisticated tool from a length of timber and a screw in each end. Adjust the screws so it fits between the wheel rims at the back and then try it at the front. Works well for zero toe in but gets a little more complicated with front wheel drive when there's typically toe out required (cos the wheels pull in a smidgen when driving, I think)
Awesome! I've done many of my own alignments with a pair of jack stands, a string, tape, marker, angle finder, and a tape measure.
I was really impressed with all the different tools and skills used to make the sleeve on the struts...then you capped it off with that spray paint job. I would have thought that would be the easiest part!
Came for the excellent audio editing for the amazing repair sequences, and was not disappointed. Then I learned what alignment was all about! Thank you.
Id like to see you do a front end alignment on the reliant
Hot glue tip: If you ever get hot glue on your skin, if you just squish it between your fingers, or hands, or whatever, it won't burn you. The idea is to increase the surface area enough that it will cool faster.
If that Yugo doesn't qualify as a sleeper, then I don't know what does. 😎
is it a sleeper I thought it was an attempted murder
A sleeper has to be fast though. It's still a 4 cylinder.
@@rubiconnn hurrdurr 4 cylinders slow
I know of a brownish tan 1964 Studebaker 4 door sedan that has a supercharged 305 cid engine (Studebaker R3). Now THAT'S a sleeper.
@@ek8710 You can spend a ton of money upgrading a 4 cylinder but it'll never get the performance that a 6 or 8 cylinder would get with those same upgrades.
My friend and i used to do a basic toe in / toe out alignment after replacing tie rod ends in his driveway. We just used a tape measure, hooked it onto one of the treads of the tire, pulled it across under the car, and measure the distance to a tread on the other tire. Do this for the front and back of the tire multiple times, making adjustments in between and eventually we would get the numbers to be the same.
The trick was to make sure you were measuring between the same treads every time. We would then take the car to a shop to get a real alignment and usually they would tell us it was in spec, or very close and only did a little adjustment.
Probably difficult to do this alone but with 2 people its pretty easy
This was the best video I have seen in a long time. Love the work you do, the very special cars, the humor and the amazing editing! It's FUN!
Those big fancy machines get it close enough too, just less math on our end. It's really up to your mechanic how correct it is. I did learn how to align because I couldn't find a shop able to align mine, one shop even told me my steering wheel was on wrong and it'd have to be taken off to get straight. Turned out the adjuster screw was all the way in on the rack side and half way in the tie rod side. so I put it equal distance apart and was easily able to straighten my wheel and stop the hard pulling. Metal Ruler, Jack Stands, String. No unusual wear over the next ~80k miles
I use two 72" levels (yes, woodworking) bungee-corded to the tires to set toe, because they let me get measurements.
I set camber by using magnetic bubble things stuck to the rotors through the wheel spokes.
I also use floor pads to level the car before using that stuff, but to finish the car I do a 1-2 mile test drive and check the tire wear by measuring the tread temperature with an IR thermometer inside/center/outside for every tire.
My method must work because my fuel economy went up.
ok I am confused
have you tried farting into the air intake while the engines running?
I do alignments for a living, and am impressed with your work; mainly how you just figure it out and work things through. Well done!
The use of plumb bobs is brilliant! A carpenter using the tools of the trade.
it could work not sure how it's done by a mechanic maybe that's how they do it
1:02 Those CV boots! Please do something about that!
Edit: 2:04... Thank you!
It would be funny to get the "official" instructions on how to do this. It would probably involve a goose egg and some twine and the tools supplied in the trunk. I remember LADA used to include a tool kit including... I think it was a clutch removal tool? Something like that.
Mah.. you can fix pretty much anything a yugo with a 13-17 wrench key....
Not sure about a clutch removal tool but the toolkit I got with mine included a torch, a hammer and a hand crank to start the engine
I got a LADA questions now. ..
"including... I think it was a clutch removal tool?" nope, there wasn't. Lada has 2 tool kits - small one (wheel bolts wrench, tool for adjusting spark lug gap/ignition contacts maintenance, spark plug wrench) and big bag (bunch of keys 8/10 10/12 11/13 17/19 etc, screwdrivers (+ and -). Main wrenches for Lada are 10, 13 and 17 :) If you have them, you can do 2/3 of maintenance jobs.
The solution I use for toe is similar to your first setup. Next time, shoot forward, should be fairly clear out to about 20 feet. Compare the difference between the two lines right in front of the bumper, and 10 to 15 feet out. I've gotten within 1/2 of a degree this way
Please make the Fog lights Yellow :-) It looks great but that would be a perfect detail
Front wheel drive cars get a little toe out because the wheels pull forward. Rear wheel drive cars get toe in because rolling resistance pushes the wheels back. The goal is to have neutral toe while driving down the road because toe in or out is a tire wearing condition while camber and caster are not. Great job!
Never thought I'd say this, I ❤ this Yugo!
you should get one and do fun shit with it like they did with that one
I've adjusted the toe by straightening the steering wheel, pushing the car back and forth on a smooth surface so the suspension is settled, lift one wheel by the A-arm, spin wheel and scribe a line in the rubber with a screw driver and repeat on the other side. Lower onto news paper or something clean and then roll back and forth. Then have someone help you measure the forward most line you can reach with a tape measure and then the back and compare to what you want it to be; 1/4" toe-in or whatever. You need something clean on the floor so you dont lose your reference line when you are rolling it back and forth.
"This piece of mdf"
Robert you've made a pokeball
Pokeball catches you!
3:15 " I just want to tell you about my Box, because I like it a lot."
I like your box too, Robert.
9:06
Robert: "It burns! Hot glue is hot!"
Me: *Noted*
All you need is a long string, 2 sticks longer than the car is wide, and 2 buckets or crates, as high as the centerline of the axles. Put the crates at the front and rear bumper in the center of the car. Put a stick on each, so that it projects from each side of the bumper. Tie a string on the rear stick and pull and wrap it around the front stick on each side. Use a tape measure to distance the strings the same from the center of each rear wheel, and make the front and rear string spacing equal. Now you have two strings on each side that are parallel to the centerline of the car (rear axle) and you can use a tape measure to measure every wheel at the rim edge to the string, and adjust as needed.
You do need to leave the wheels on the car and work on the ground, as taking off a wheel will mess up your string alignment.
I have always done much the same by ratchet strapping PVC pipe to the wheels and having 8 feet stick out the front! A degree or two off and it's inches off at the ends. Why do I bother doing it myself? Well USED to be most places wouldn't even align Jeeps with big tires other than with a tape measure which I can do myself. Now a lot of bigger shops won't align a vehicle with ANY suspension mods. I mean yeah, you can find somewhere but plenty will say either their machine won't cause the numbers don't match up since they plug your vehicle into the computer OR they talk liability. I got turned away from TWO shops that wouldn't mount my tires (oversized by like an inch) on my Cherokee because they didn't match the size on the door. The third shop made me sign a waiver because my speedo wasn't calibrated. Why not? Cause it actually reads spot on now instead of the normal few MPH low!
I just mount and balance my tires myself now since all the stuff to do it cost me less than having someone else do it!
Oh and how do you measure the pipe using my method? Measure the distance between the pipe as close to the tire and then measure it at the end (I use 8 foot pipe) and adjust until the two numbers match up meaning there is no toe in/out or do the math and set a but of toe in if you need to. You can make it pretty accurate since the length of the pipe amps up any inaccuracy. If you are off by only a small amount at the wheel end it's WAY off at the end of the pipe making minute adjustments very easy. Think about it this way. If the pipe was a mile long and you are off my even half a degree the ends a mile away would be like a football field apart.
The only vehicle I have ever seen with a calibrated speedo is a police car. It literally says calibrated on the speedometer. If it doesn't say calibrated on the dash, it can be off as much as 1-3mph, so Im not sure why a shop would require a waiver for a car where the speedo wasn't calibrated, since almost no car sold to the public is actually calibrated. Its one of the reasons cops rarely pull someone over for driving a few mph over, because their speedo might be reading the correct speed, and if they did write them a ticket, they would be banking on them just paying it to avoid the hassle, because it would be a simple matter to goto court and say your dash read the proper speed and have it tossed out, because judges also know a vast majority of cars on the road do not have calibrated speedometers....
@@ixamraxi It's very common to change speedo drive gears or reprogram the speedometer when changing tire sizes on a car or truck which was the point of that section of my post. They wouldn't install the tires without the waiver because they were not the stock size and my speedometer had not been recalibrated for the new size. I assume so if I got a ticket I didn't try and come back and blame them and claim ignorance.
for the CV boot... an old speed trick was to put zip ties in the accordion parts to keep them from spreading when going too fast... when moving too fast they would sling too much of the grease away from the joint and we all know how metal likes to rub against metal...
it would likely help the super glue parts stay together longer at least....
side note... I want my yugo back... i LOVED that thing...
This thing is one of the coolest cars ever to exist.
Balkan car
Yugo koral 55
Zastava 55
I really like your plumbob method for toe. I have always driven with a tapemesuarae alignment and never had any issues with it. In fact once I brought a car to an alignment shop after doing on, they charged me a hundred doll hairs and said that they made 0 adjustments. While it is nice that we can calculate to the hundreth of a degree for camber and toe. The reality is that most of the specs have a fair amount of tolerance in them.
And most shops stop adjusting when it gets in spec instead of adjusting to optimum.
Would have been handy to have an alignment rack for this.... maybe even in a pit in the floor.... which has a weird L shape to it....
Next video : I UNFILLED THE PIT AND INSTALLED AN ALIGNMENT RACK
Chalk line around tire. Measure distance front and rear of tire. When they match? You're golden.
What I've noticed driving an old VW Polo 86c, which has very similar suspension is that a little toe-out makes the car very stable and even driving it on the track felt really good as the turn-in was very nice. It had 8" wide rims with +20 ET and that pushed the front wheels 25 mm out of the fenders.
Man, lowering the car onto those stacked plastic sheets was GENIUS. If you wanted to go high-style low-tech, you could mount HDPE sheet onto a piece of 1/2" steel, say 12x12 inches. Do that 4 times and you'd be able to get as close to a frictionless setup as you'd ever want for not too much.
Or, ya know, use a couple plastic blocks all on their own. Whichever.
this children is why you don’t fill your garage’s alignment pit
I remember the days of using chalk, tape measure, large plastic protractor and a set of home made tracking arms to set up the front ends on many an old British car. Luckily Haynes Manuals all had the methodology and technique in most their manuals with an easy to read list o' values to make the job pretty easy. I remember an old Ford Sierra that had a buggered front strut thanks to a deep pothole and I just set it up all true, the front wheel was wonky as hell visually but it tracked perfectly then I changed the strut and had to seriously beat the bent bits back into place using a hot torch and judicious whacking with a 4 pound club hammer hehe
0:25 Front end alignment for couple hundred dollars? I live in a country where living is rather expensive but an entire 4-wheel alignment sets me back only 80 euros.
Well done. A lot of tlc and enthusiasm. I passed my driving exam on Yugo45, and I preferred it to Golf Mk1 my parents owned.
"...a couple of hundred dollars..." WTF!? Even four wheel alignment takes less than half an hour and is less than £25 to £40 in the UK. What is the deal with that price tag?
The worst part is that the mechanic still gets the same hourly wage regardless of what the shop is charging for his labor. And these are workers who have a union. We've gone full dystopia over here.
It’s usually because the equipment costs 5 figures, and shops are trying to justify that equipment cost. (As well as special training and supplies to use that alignment equipment to its full potential)
"It's not trying to kill me!" -Nighttime Robert
Ageing Wheels seal of approval.
I mean, going from "Kill me" to "not kill me" is an amazing improvement.
Ok, I have DIY aligned all my cars for decades. Stay tuned here for tips and laughs.
I never thought I'd like a sponsor segment. But this onr goes above and beyond
Is he joking when he says a couple hundred bucks for an alignment?
A wheel alignment where i live in the UK was £25 ($40)
$40 gets you a "set the toe, and let it go" job. If you want something real, including actual camber, caster, and toe adjustments, as well as whatever the FWD equivalent of thrust-angle is... that's gonna cost you a lot more.
@@mungtor ah that makes more sense, that is probably the same here. My £25 alignment was just "set toe and go"
unfortunately, no. And if your car is a manual [speaking as a vintage VW guy], they'll probably fuck up your shift linkage and clutch for your troubles.
This car is legit badass looking. BTW, I like you how you don’t blur out your plates like some of these people who think viewers have nothing better to do than track them down and stalk them (or their car which is a really funny thought). Car sounds fantastic.
The best thing about a Yugo is the Heated back window that keeps your hands warm while pushing it
Now that you’ve shown the puppy I hope to see it in every video. So cute
I used to get driven to high school by a friend who had a yugo. What a tin can! it's fun to watch your modifications to this car - keep them coming! :)
A friend of mine and I used to do almost the exact same thing…school kids can’t afford alignments. When we finally could afford an actual alignment, they were off only a slight amount. You can get it closer than you think.
"WOO HOO it's not trying to kill me!" Reminds me of my most recent wife... (don't ask). Classic Aging Wheels episode. Thank you Robert!
"Good enough" can be an incredibly liberating concept.
Like that you used a reference to your flawed go-cart project in the sponsored part. Don’t know whether it is good marketing practice to do that but it is typical for aging wheels. Love it.
I have been doing my own front end alignments at home since the 1980's. Using the rafter square is close enough to set Camber on reasonably level ground. I bought some simple alignment tools from J.C. Whitney and (after learning how to best use the tools) end up with an alignment that causes a bit less tire wear than an alignment shop. The tool I use for the Toe measures the difference between the leading and trailing edge of the front tires.
The Castor and Camber I set to 0, 0 degrees as a default. The Toe is by far the most important setting. Unfortunately, front wheel drive cars cannot hold Toe because, the breaking pulls the Toe the opposite way from the propelling force applied by the driveline. To get the most accurate preliminary wheel position to prepare for the Toe setting. While in neutral, I push the car backwards about 6 feet/2 meters and let it come to a stop on its own, then set the Toe. The preliminary push places the resting Toe at the best compromise point between power and braking for a front drive car (for a rear drive car, the preliminary push is forward). I then set the Toe at exactly 0 inches/mm. As a double check, I keep an eye on tire wear every 6 months and touch up the Toe if necessary.
More puppy please. Watching them later when grown will be priceless. My lil doggy grew up so fast. Loved seeing you simply and explain your methodology on the alignment.
8:16 - Brilliant!
I wish I'd filmed the rebuild of my land-rover, so I could speed it up like that...
We have a level that has a magnet on it to check chamber. So when we do struts that have adjustment we mark the original angle.
4:53 dammit - I've been watching too much ElectroBOOM and was expecting him to say, "And I've got 5 to give away at the end of this video!".
You take a pole or narrow pipe of a 100mm less lentgth then wheel inner width. You put a bolt and a nut and screw a bolt in pipe. You measure front of between tires, unscrew bolt until it fits width, then compare back of between tires. In Zastava factory there was a tool of that sort with measurements, but they are actually not needed. There is a tool with "U" kink if there is an engine in the way.
The most famous quote ever "hot glue is **dum dum dum** HOT" **audience gasp**
I would love to see Robert add a backup camera and a Bluetooth radio to the Yugo. My dad owned a Yugo a long while ago and if we still had it I would try to fix it up and do the same thing.
Front wheel drive usually needs about 2 degrees of toe out so when going forward, the wheels pull forward to be in a straight line.
Rear wheel drive needs 2 degrees of toe in so the wheels get pushed apart when being powered from the rear.
As a professional mechanic who's sent hundreds of cars off to several different alignment shops, let me tell you that I've never gotten one back that I was 100% satisfied with. I'm not sure if it's their incompetence or poor calibration of the alignment racks. What I can tell you is that if it's not a customer's car, I just do an alignment by eye, and I can get it to 99%. My method is very simple, but you need a good eye for straightness. For camber, you've got the right idea. Check against a flat surface. For toe, lay down in front of the car, and look straight down the front tire to the rear tire, with your eye at the level of the center of the wheels. It's exactly like looking down a 2x4 for straightness, or bow. The rear tire off in the distance is like a single point. The front tire is two points, the sidewall at front and rear. Line up all three points in your line of sight, and boom, you got it.
There is some nuance, of course, like making sure the steering wheel is straight before every time you check (your adjustments will turn it). And settling the suspension before every time you check - although the slippery blocks are a good idea. They also have slide-y platforms for this exact purpose.
Next time, to make it a bit easier for yourself. Place four jackstands at every corner of the car, have string between the front and rear on both side. Measure from the center of the rim to the string, and adjust both strings so that they are the same distance from the rim on both sides of the car, and measure between the jackstands. You are trying to make a square around the car. Then when you have everything square, measure with a ruler from the string to the edges of the rim. Now you can adjust Toe, precisly. If you have some proper rims, 0.5mm accuracy is well within reach. Have all wheels suspended or on turning plates to reduce friction. This is how we used to square up Old GT cars with the porsche racing team. We had proper stands instead of jackstands, but they serve the same purpose.
They make magnetic angle gauges that you can stick to the wheel to set camber. Decades ago when we would get cars that we didn't have specs for we would set the camber 0-05. On the left and 0.5-1.0 on the right to make up for road crown. A tiny bit of toe in and send them out the door.
I find it funny out of all the cars on RUclips your collection of cars especially this little hotrod Yugo just always brings a smile to my face👍 all I can say at the end of this please try and pass as many people as possible in this Yugo just so it sets in that they got passed by a Yugo lololol
With this technique, you can get the alignment bob-on. We did this with string on the rally cars we ran and got it totally perfect.
Hey. So nice to see you use so many exciting tools, which make the job a game with matches .. or goose eggs. and you have the knowledge to do it right. Nice videos you have but you do not have to hurry so fast, it's nice to see what you do and hear what you say, but do not cut off the breaks, .. looks so busy .. NOTE, you have to put a little toe- in, because when the car drives forward, the wheels are pushed a little backwards, and then it will be like a straight toe. and you should have some camber because eventually gravity will help change the camber angle!
a Yugo with Wilwood brakes and Sparco wheels is just awesome
This is far more scientific than how we aligned our '72 Beetle. We leant an old house door against the side of the car and eyeballed it from there. It actually worked surprisingly well.
I am so envious of your awesome shop Robert!
The easiest way to set the toe angle is measure from the back middle of one wheel diagonally to the front middle of the other wheel, and do the same thing with the front middle of the first wheel to the back middle of the other wheel - forming an X. When those two measurements are the same, the angle is set at or near 0 degrees. (Measurements taken from the inboard edge of both wheels)
The fun part of taking the Yugo to your local shop for an alignment is the look on their faces when they see it's a Yugo...
A front wheel drive car usually has a bit of toe out. The drive force will pull it back to 0 toe while driving.
Rear wheel drive cars usually have a tiny bit of toe in. The resistance will push it back to 0 while driving