Fitzee’s Fabrications is a YouTube channel that I like to watch for inspiration and how-to videos on rust repair, sheet metal fabrication, and more. He’s interesting, has a great accent, and makes every single thing he does seem completely doable by anyone with the desire to do so. But one of the things I think most people find great about him is his tips, tricks, and hacks that make things easier. He often shows ways to make things without the fancy tools normally associated with them.
Wheel alignments are one of those things that most people have done at a local auto shop, unless they have an at-home alignment setup like our favorite from Quick Trick. But the truth is you can actually do an alignment with a tape measure and some string. Yep, and Fitzee is going to show you how in the video below. Pay attention, and then try it out and home and let us know how it works out for you.
The cool thing about this method is that since it doesn’t require a bunch of stuff you might now have, you can try it out in your own garage. I mean the worst-case scenario is that you don’t do a good job and still have to bring your car to the local alignment guy. But it might be fun, and you might actually be good at it.
Since he put in 1/8th inch on each side, doesn’t that make for a TOTAL of 1/4 inch toe-in? Seems like a lot. I run 1/8th inch total on my 175 mph Altered.
Did many alignments on with no more than 2 pieces of 1″ square tubing, 4 paint cans, a digital level, and a tape measure. On drag cars it’s all pretty easy, more difficult on stock suspended cars but still mostly doable, at least the toe and camber is easy anyways.
What this will tell you better than anything is if the rear end is square in the car…or bent.
Just found Fitzee the other day. The man is excellent at breaking things down to where I can understand what he is doing and why.