any ideals on front end alignment. stock on a 1965 skylark is like 1/4 inch toe in. 1/2* positive camber and 1/4* negative caster. been reading with radial tires that you can go a 1/8 inch toe in. says nothing about camber and caster. on the newer skylarks they call for a positive caster, even the older full size cars have a positive caster.
Joe, IF you are radial tires you WANT to go as far as possible to positive Caster, Camber 0 + or -1/4* . On toe I ALWAYS go in the middle of stock specs. Lets say the specs are 1/8" to 1/4" in the middle would be 3/16ths.
Positive caster will help return the wheel to center and track straight. A lot of people use the shopping cart comparison. You'll probably find that with stock suspension, you can't get much positive caster; I just replaced the upper control arms on my '65 and ended up with zero caster and zero camber (within a couple of tenths of a degree). Caster and camber are a bit of a tug of war with the shim setup these things have, so you usually end up with a compromise. I like to run 1/16-1/8" toe-in with radials.
Back in the day cars were designed with neg. caster for easier steering & to slow you down in turns because of "Oversteer"??? Benefits. as stated wheel returns to center faster after a turn especially after a faster ratio steering box is used. Is more resistant to cross winds. Is being steered by the front wheels instead of being "Pushed" by the rear wheels & many other things I'm forgetting at the moment. Look at MANY newer cars. Some have positive 10+ this is for a reason. Caster has NOTHING to do with wear as MANY think.
