DIYbanter - View Single Post - What size nut goes onto a typical US passenger tire Schrader valve?

Leon Schneider

wrote on Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:46:06 -0500:

Trust me, painting your car is a lot harder than it looks -
particularly to do a decent job "at home"

Fair enough assessment.

Replacing and balancing tires requires either reasonable equipment

Harbor Freight has everything you need, for under $200 overall.
Out here, that's about 10 tires to break even on the tools.
But the best thing is that you get the job done right when you do it
yourself, because I have NEVER seen a tire-changing job done correctly yet
at the tire shops. Not once.

Alignment is another story - not hard to measure and adjust toe. Not
terribly hard to check camber, but measuring caster requires special
tools.

Depends on the vehicle, but my sedan only has adjustments for rear camber
and front-and-back toe, so, for me, that's all I'd need to measure.

Alignments on today's vehicles really only need to be done if the
vehicle is damaged. or parts are replaced. They don't "go out of
alignment" unless something bends or wears.

I'm not so sure of that, because any good pothole can knock something off
alignment but I can't argue the issue becuase I don't really know. I just
know that I've seen it recommended to get the suspension aligned with each
new set of tires (which is about every two years).

And if you cannot measure the caster and camber you don't know if
there is anything wrong - but your tires wear and the car pulls to the
left or right. You can't tell if the car is tracking properly or if it
has a bent or twisted uni-body or sub frame.

As you stated, if you have owned the car, then you know pretty much only
have to deal with alignment drifting out of whack over time so a check of
only toe and camber will do for cars, such as mine, that have no other
adjustments anyway.

However, if you're buying a car, then by all means, have the tracking,
steering axis inclination, ride height, etc., all checked at an alighment
shop who has the tools to measure anything and everything.

But at home, my hypothesis is that only camber and toe need to be measured
for my car (and many others) since that's all you can adjust anyway.

Both can be measured with home tools to reasonable accuracy (is my
hypothesis); but I haven't tried it myself yet.

And not always terribly accurately - and you still need to know the
car is sitting level to start with -

Fair enough that you need a level garage (or you need to level the car by
using linoleum tiles under the wheels). And you have to set the vehicle
ride height (which, for my car, requires about 500 pounds of weight).

But all of that is doable in a home garage.

What do you need that for? The inner edge of the rim or the outer
edge of the rim works just as well, if not better than the "center of
the tread" and is how real alignment equipment works - and it checks
to make sure the rim is "true" and compensates if it is not - - -

This is a good point. I have always done my toe to the centerpoint line
scribed on both tires, especially when it's to the centerpoint of the
underside of the vehicle - but - to your point - any reference measurement
can be used.

To my point, it's just a measurement of distance, and it doesn't have to be
to the ten thousandths of an inch - so it just has to be a decently good
measurement, which is certainly doable in a home garage.

The problem I have run into most is that you can't get a straight string
across the underside of the car becuase of protruding stuff but that's why
a C-shaped jig would work for that.

Only less than 1 in 1000 people is "capable" of doing a proper
alignment without proper equipment - and only about 1 in 4 (being
charitable here) mechanics can do it WITH the proper equipment.

I think aproximately zero cars are aligned correctly, based only on my
experience with my car at "normal" alignement shops. So, again, if you want
your car's alignment to be done right, you often have to do it yourself
(or, in my case, you have to bring your own weights to the shop!).

That's my story - and I'm sticking to IT. As a former mechanic and
former service manager and shop foreman who has had a few very good
front end men, and a lot more who would starve to death doing it flat
rate and choke on their come-backs.

You are obviously a lot less fussy than the average customer.

Heh heh ... I'm the shop's worst nightmare.
The reason is that I WATCH what they do.

I have NEVER in my entire life, for example, seen a tire installed corretly
at a tire shop. Not once. I can give you a littany of errors that they
make, and they have thrice given me the job for free because I had to
complain to their management.

Never once have I seen a shop do my model of vehicle properly for alignment
either.

In both cases (alignment and tires), if you want it done right, then you
have to do it yourself. So, while I do very much respect your advice and
judgement, the one thing I have to tell you is that I'm fussy as hell when
I'm paying someone else to do THEIR job right (and no mechanic ever does).