Anyone Use Toe Plates to Set Toe Alignment?

[Mikey]

Anyone use toe plates to set their toe? If so, how did it work for you? Any tips or hints?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[B RON CO]

Hi, toe plates work great to measure toe in. Work on a level slab. Set the tire pressure. Roll the Bronco back and forth, and bounce the bumper and measure it again. Experiment with @ 1/8 to 1/4 toe in and see how it feels.My home made toe plates are aluminum diamond plate rocker mouldings re purposed for toe setting when I change a steering rack or tie rod end. An alignment machine takes measurements from the center of the axle, with toe plates the measurement is lower to the ground, but still in the ballpark. My friend has real toe plates for his Saturday Night Stock Car and we use them all the time. Any guy could use some 2 x 6 boards with good results. Good luck

 

[Broncobowsher]

Masking tape and a tape measure
Measure between any two tread blocks behind the axle as high up as possible. Mark those exact blocks with tape. Roll the truck forward and measure again. Since you are measuring rear to front and not centerline to front, the measurements are double. If you measure ½" difference, actual toe is only ¼"
By measuring the exact same tread block you are taking out any variation due to bent rims or tire irregularities.

 

[Mikey]

Found this: http://www.hmsmotorsport.com/docs/Setting_Toe_Properly.pdf

 

[Mikey]

This has some different ideas: https://nasaspeed.news/toolshed-eng...ent-you-can-adjust-your-cars-toe-by-yourself/

By the way, I have "official" toe plates and used them a few years ago on the Bronco. This article covers how to do it by myself. Might do a few of these things. The plates were a bit of a hassle hence my questions. Reading this article showed me that my error is not centering the plates...I don't recall paying attention to that detail. Looks like I'll have my wife help hold the one plate this go around and I will mark the centers of the plates. Bronco is just a little twitchy.

 

[pcf_mark]

"If you measure ½" difference, actual toe is only ¼"
By measuring the exact same tread block you are taking out any variation due to bent rims or tire irregularities."

Broncobowsher this may explain something I have been doing wrong on my Bronco for years. If I understand correctly you are saying the measurement of the toe for the spec is 1/4" (for example) that is total toe from the center of the wheels to the rim edge? This forms a small triangle which ends up being a small angle pointing inward of the tire when viewed from the top. I have been setting toe by measure the front and rear distance (as you suggested with tape) and setting the toe as the total difference. I set the distance at the back to be 1/4" (for example) greater the rear than at the front toeing in the tires. If I understand correctly I have been over toeing it because my distance is twice as large.

Does my question make sense?

 

[Yeller]

On a solid axle I pull the tires, clamp a straight edge to the brake rotors and measure the toe, very precise and very simple to do

 

[Broncobowsher]

"If you measure ½" difference, actual toe is only ¼"
By measuring the exact same tread block you are taking out any variation due to bent rims or tire irregularities."

Broncobowsher this may explain something I have been doing wrong on my Bronco for years. If I understand correctly you are saying the measurement of the toe for the spec is 1/4" (for example) that is total toe from the center of the wheels to the rim edge? This forms a small triangle which ends up being a small angle pointing inward of the tire when viewed from the top. I have been setting toe by measure the front and rear distance (as you suggested with tape) and setting the toe as the total difference. I set the distance at the back to be 1/4" (for example) greater the rear than at the front toeing in the tires. If I understand correctly I have been over toeing it because my distance is twice as large.

Does my question make sense?

Actually under-towing.
Toe is based on something like a 29" tire. It is the front of the tire being that much narrower then the track width (centerline) of the tires. Getting the centerline at home is very difficult at home, but measuring front and rear off the same reference point is rather easy. So instead of measuring the toe in based on the radius of a 29" tire, you are measuring toe based on the diameter. Now for that 29" tire baseline, nothing to worry about. Since you are slightly below the centerline of the tire you are measuring pretty close to that 29". And with as little toe as there is, the error due to oversized tires doesn't add up to much of anything. Someone who is good with math can tell us how many thousandths of an inch change there is between measuring a 29 and a 33" tire.

Another thing I add to the toe measurement is how worn the parts are. New ball joints and steering linkage, on the lower side. Used parts, add a touch more toe so the drag will pull the on the play of the used parts and the wheels will pull into the normal toe.

 

[Mikey]

On a solid axle I pull the tires, clamp a straight edge to the brake rotors and measure the toe, very precise and very simple to do

Doing it this way is not accurate. Your suspension in up in the air with no weight on it so you measurements are all wrong. You must have weight on wheels.

 

[pcf_mark]

Thank you I learned something great today!

 

[Broncobowsher]

Doing it this way is not accurate. Your suspension in up in the air with no weight on it so you measurements are all wrong. You must have weight on wheels.

With IFS that is very true. But with a beam axle and a solid tie rod connecting them (Inverted T but not Inverted Y) you can set the toe even with the axle out of the truck. None of the reference points change.

Now caster, steering wheel centering, axle centering. That will be wrong. But toe will be right.

 

[SteveL]

What is the measurement going off just the rotors? Depending on tire size the measurement changes. Guys running 31's are usually 1/8"-1/4". Running 35s I'm at 5/16. I did mine with the instructions bc has in their tech section.