DIY camber question

[Critter]

When I got the 72 stepper in my sig the PO had just replaced everything in the front end as far as ball joints, bushings, tie rods, etc but didn't get it aligned so as you can imagine it drives like poop right now. I can use a tape measure and get the toe in/out taken care of but is there a way to use my angle finder to adjust the camber? Is there a surface I should let the magnet sit on and if so what degree angle would I look for? Once I get some decent tires on it I will take it for a professional alignment but as it is now I can barely drive it around the block faster than 30mph. I searched but didn't find any info on this.

Here is the type of angle finder I have.

[dwcsr]

You can't do it with that tool. You need something like this
http://www.saferacer.com/longacre-ma...?productid=620

[Tx Firefighter]

Air the tires up to take the bulge out of the bottom and use one of these. I've done it that way for 20 years.

[Critter]

HA! Two very different answers there. I would really like to avoid spending the money on new tools right now, so I will ask TX Firefighter...do you just adjust the tires to be exactly perpendicular with the ground. In other words, the side of the tire should be straight up and down?

[Tx Firefighter]

Not exactly straight up and down. There is supposed to be a slight negative camber when all is set up well. I set them to where the square touches the bottom of the tire and the top is about 1/16 away from the square.

You've been here awhile and seen the number of trucks I've built. I've never done a professional alignment on any of them. Set the camber like we discussed, tape measure the toe in and run it. As long as you use equal stacks of shims front and rear on the control arm studs (when setting the camber), the caster will work itself out naturally.

I drive everyone of my trucks and drive them a lot. Daily drivers and long out of state road trips. Never worn a tire out yet due to alignment, just flat too many miles, wearing them out evenly.

Someone, somewhere will poo poo on my actions, but it's always worked for me. I'm a cheap bastard and if I was wearing tires, I would do something different.

[Critter]

Thanks Kevin, your methods seem to be tried and true. At the very least I will be able to get it close enough to drive short distances, right now I can't do that!

While we are on the subject I will ask how you handle the toe in setup. I have always adjusted it so that when measuring the distance from the inner rim lip from one wheel to the other on the forward edge is approx 1/8th" closer together than the rear lip distance from one wheel to the other. Holy Cow, that's confusing. In other words I toe it in about an 1/8th" using the rims as a place to take a measurement. The issue with this is it will affect a 20" rim different than a 15" rim...but only very slightly. These are 15s and it's always worked in the past.