5ktqw Alignment done!

[John Karasaki <johkar@teleport.com>]

Thanks to all the listers that provided alignment recommendations for our
'87 5ktqw.

On a recommendation from a friend who is a car fanatic, I went to the local
Firestone place (Lake Oswego, OR) and got the "lifetime" alignment for
$130.  If another Steamboat Springs driving school is in this cars future,
I'll need it!  The owner of the shop was pretty cool.  He set the car up as
close to my requirements as possible.  He even recommended that since I
drive the car hard, I should get it aligned upon every second oil change
(6000 miles).  I was very surprised since I paid for the "lifetime," and
this would be at no cost to me.

I wanted to get all 4 corners at -0.5 deg. camber, but since it is lowered
in the front, they could only get -1 deg. up front.  They had no problem
getting -0.5 deg. in the rear.

Here's the big surprise:  the original settings were: LF -1.5 RF 1.8 LR
-2.0 and RR -2.5, yikes!  No wonder the car handled excellent on the track
at Bremerton (a counter clockwise track)!  Also no wonder I wore through
the crappy tires I had on there in a few thousand miles!

The car now seems to transition better when saloming.  I won't be able to
test the high speed handling for a month though.

Happy trails!





Best Regards,

John Karasaki