Wheel Alignment

Wheel Alignment

Wheel alignments consists of adjusting the angles of the wheels so that they are straight up & down to the ground and parallel to each other. The wheel alignment is so the vehicle drives straight & also to maximum the life of the tyre.

Pre checks are done before the alignment is to take place some of these are:

Tyre Pressure

Tyre Condition

Any Play on the ball joints, steering rack & rack end.

Check the spare tyre too

When checking the the tyre condition we needed to check for the wear of the tyre - Toe wear, camber wear, centre wear, edge wear, patch wear & also cup wear.

When doing the alignment the vehicle needs to be on a hoist as the hoist is more level than the ground.

To the left the vehicle has been pushed on to a set of turn tables.

These are so we are able turn the wheels freely.

The video on the left is of the plugs getting put on the wheel clamp. These are put on so we can securely attach the wheel clamp to the rim of the wheel.

These are showing how we attached the wheel clamp to the wheel of the vehicle.

The three plugs attach to the rim, The two arms of the clamp are what clamps to the face of the tyre.

It is critical that the clamp is put on how you see in the pics.

This is so when the camera is put on it will sit perfectly straight with the wheel.

The beam is what slide's into the wheel clamp, The bit that attaches to the clamp has a camera that lines up to the centre of the wheel & send the the info back to the computer.
There are four of these & each one has to be set on the right wheel of the vehicle.
Passenger side of the car is number one, driver two, left rear three & right rear four.

Each of these have a level on them so we can get it dead straight. The reason for this set up is so we can turn the wheel & the beam will stay straight with out turning with the wheel

This showing what we see when we are doing the alignment. When turning the wheels on the vehicle, the wheels on the computer will light up green as we turn them 90 degrees each time.

This checking the run out of the wheels.

The video on the right is showing how the wheel run out is done.