DIY tracking/toe gauge

[paulg23]

Made my own toe guage today. Total toe in of 40 mins. 20 mins per side. I guess that's OK.

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[Louis]

Lets see more of it :)

[paulg23]

Not my original idea, saw it on a website called www.trackace.co.uk. Decided to make my own. Cost about £15.

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[MarkSanne]

Great idea Paul! Would you happen to have the printed toe in-out scale as a file so I (and others) can print it too? Thanks!

[paulg23]

pdf of the scale attached. It should print out with the degree marks 24mm apart.
The scale needs to be 1375mm from the offside wheel.

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Let me know if you need any more info.

[MarkSanne]

Superb!!!

[Davezj]

when you print the PDF ensure you do not have fit to page selected, otherwise it prints to just over 23mm between degrees on an A4 print not the required 24mm.

[Davezj]

it is an interesting system but i am not convinced of the value of the measurement you are getting.

due to the fact you don't know the straight ahead point. one wheel could be perfectly straight ahead and the other could be the 40mins off but you adjust the track end on the perfectly straight ahead wheel and this will point the wheels off 40 mins to one side. altghough the toe in/out would be 0mins.

and this system is designed to check toe in/out so it is probably OK. It might be wise to align the car (front and back wheel on one side) with a straight line on the ground some how, painted line, chalk line, etc. so that one of the front wheels will be straight ahead and you know which one that is. Or maybe you can do it some other way.

[paulg23]

As I understand it the front wheels of a car are self centering so once the car is moving the toe angle will be equal both sides. When you get the toe angle checked at a garage they will set the steering wheel to straight ahead and then check the toe angle which could then be different each side.

[Confused]

You can set the toe in/out to a known value (say 40 mins toe in), but that could quite easily be comprised of:


Left - 60 mins toe out
Right - 100 mins toe in


Which obviously, isn't equal! So whilst it's a useful tool (especially if you're, for example, changing a single rack end, and wish to set it back to the same point again by taking a "before" measurement), it's not going to guarantee that it's all within tolerance like a proper 4 wheel alignment will.

[chris g]

To decide if tracking needs sorting, I would to put my foot against front wheel when car parked and wheels self-centred...

And if MY toe looked to be pointing in or out excessively then a dash to the garage for some techno wizardry measuring stick laser show...