Well, as a few of you know, I've been looking for some new tires for my Caddy, which is a result of the front end alignment wearing the insides of the tires. It was terrible when I got the car, I had my alignment guy at the shop attempt to fix it off specs I found on the net after I rotated the fresh rear tires to the front. It drove a lot better, but 5k later it was wearing the insides of the tires again. Had my other alignment guy, who has been doing it for years, re-align the car. Same issue. Took it to Les Schwab, same result.....I've checked out the front end myself for loose balljoints, a-arms, rod ends, etc., as well as at least 3 front end guys looking at it, and have found nothing wrong...So what specs are you Electra guys running? I've got a new guy who wants to give it a go, and quite frankly I'd like it to be right this time and I'm not on any Caddy forums, plus the one's I've checked out I don't get the feeling they're too technically proficient haha......Help a big GM car brother out, if you can
Yessir, most definitely. Was also wondering if there were specs that the guys driving them "fudge" it to, different than the manual. Maybe a little more caster, more positive camber than spec, etc. The cars seem to go super negative on camber when turning, which is where I think my tire wear is coming from. The first guy did it to what was supposedly Cadillac's specs that I got off one of the forums, which as I said made the car drive a lot better, but the tire wear still continues.....
Hahaha....I do think that's part of my problem, if I'm honest. The winding mountain roads around here and an 80 mph speed limit aren't helping. Our alignment machine is also computerized, but the cars in the online catalog specs don't go back that far, so we've got to do the same thing. I look them up, the guy punches them into the machine, and aligns it to those specs.
Specs I gave the first guy off a caddy forum I found were: Caster: -1/2 to -1 1/2 Camber: +3/8 to -3/8 Toe: 1/8 to 1/4 in.
Should there not be different specs for radial tires vs the bias belted tires that came on the cars? I know for a fact that the alignment specs for a big trucks that came from the factory with bias belted tires had to be changed for radial tires and it took experimentation to get it correct for proper steering.
Lucas, I'm going to tell you as I do many others. When these cars were new the alignment specs were specified for BIAS PLY tires. I would say that I figure 90% + or - are using radial tires now. Those specs now get thrown out the window & if your using the original specs as you have stated your not getting the full benefits of radial tires because of the OLD alignment specs. On your Caddy you have adjustable strut bars for the caster adjustment. Let me continue to say that caster has NOTHING to do with tire wear. That's mostly controlled by camber, but mainly by your toe settings. You what to get your caster as far positive that you can. You may as well buy strut rod bushing kits now as you will probably need them. Just did a '62 Eldo that I used poly bushings on, but that requires the sleeves inside to be good also that's why I recommend you buy the bushing kits now because those sleeves are probably original & rusted to little or nothing. You want as much positive caster that you can get. I set the Eldo up with +5*. You can't believe the diff. in the stability of the car just doing this. It tracks better, is more resistant to cross winds, now the car is being driven/steered by the front wheels with positive caster instead of being pushed by rear wheels with negative caster. Now onto camber. I would set it as close to zero as the upper B/J will allow, maybe even a little negative at -1/4*. Toe-in calls for 1/8" to 1/4". Divide that in 1/2 & you end with 3/16ths. toe-in which is .1875. Again divide that in 1/2 & you end up with .009 for each wheel or there about. Inside tire wear indicates TOO much toe out. Could be set at 1/8th. but it may not be enough toe-in for your particular car taking wear & other factors into consideration. The next thing you can do which also makes a big improvement is to use one of my 2.5 turns lock-lock 808 steering boxes. You won't believe the diff. Almost feels like rack & pinion & is a bolt-in swap. Have done this so far on 5 older Cadds starting with a '59 & the owners can't get over how much more pleasure they get out of driving their cars even around town. Tom T. I do the same with Riv.s from '63-70 & full size Buicks from '62-'70. Just finished one last week which was a '65 Riv. GS with the H2 option which had a 15-1 option box that was about 3 1/4 turns lock-lock & is now at 2.5. He can't get over how much better everything is. I told him we will get his Riv. to feel like one of his Ferrari's. The only limitation will be the tires.
Thanks as always, Tom. Will pass that on. I was aware of the bias vs radial thing, and that's what the first guy was supposed to compensate for. Thanks again. Hi, Bob. I checked and checked last night for my print out. It's not in the car, and it's not in my box of receipts that I keep for records on the car.....I'm sorry, I've got no idea where I put them.
