How to reset service reminder?

"Jeff Strickland" > wrote in message
...
>
> "The Malt Hound" <Malt_Hound@*no spam please*yahoo.com> wrote in
> message
> news
>> Stepping in here, I would say; it depends. The only real alignment
>> "adjustment" on your car is the front toe-in. They can usually get
>> that right OK. In fact I usually do this myself (after suspension
>> or
>> steering work) and can get it "close enough" with fishing line and
>> a
>> ruler.
>>
>
> Fishing line and a ruler?
>
> I have used a tape measure to align the front tires on my Jeep, but
> I was
> wondering what the fishing line was for. Could you please describe
> the
> procedure?

Well, here's the abbreviated version of it Jeff;

You start out by tying a small nut to one end of the fishing line and
then wedge that nut firmly into the tread at the rear of one of the
back tires about half way between the ground and the top. Then you
stretch the line all the way around the car, and around all four
wheels so that it passes over the axle on each wheel and fasten it in
the same way.

The front wheels should always be "toed in" and the line will conform
to that condition. You have to pull the line away from the sidewall
at the front of the tire until it is just barely touching the rear.
It's easiest to do this if you make a set of shallow wedges of wood to
place under the line as a spacer. By measuring the gap at the front
you will know the toe-in for that side.

To make it more accurate I have made some small wood blocks with
double sided tape on one side that I temporarily stick to the rim of
the wheels to make all measurements. This eliminates any error due to
tire sidewall variations. When making the blocks you should determine
what the difference in the front and rear track width is and make your
front blocks thicker to compensate for that so that the line is truly
running parallel and square.

With this scheme you can measure both front and rear toe.

Like I said, I should put a web page together for show-and-tell.

-Fred W

"The Malt Hound" <Malt_Hound@*no spam please*yahoo.com> wrote in message
...
>
> "Jeff Strickland" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > "The Malt Hound" <Malt_Hound@*no spam please*yahoo.com> wrote in
> > message
> > news
> >> Stepping in here, I would say; it depends. The only real alignment
> >> "adjustment" on your car is the front toe-in. They can usually get
> >> that right OK. In fact I usually do this myself (after suspension
> >> or
> >> steering work) and can get it "close enough" with fishing line and
> >> a
> >> ruler.
> >>
> >
> > Fishing line and a ruler?
> >
> > I have used a tape measure to align the front tires on my Jeep, but
> > I was
> > wondering what the fishing line was for. Could you please describe
> > the
> > procedure?
>
> Well, here's the abbreviated version of it Jeff;
>
> You start out by tying a small nut to one end of the fishing line and
> then wedge that nut firmly into the tread at the rear of one of the
> back tires about half way between the ground and the top. Then you
> stretch the line all the way around the car, and around all four
> wheels so that it passes over the axle on each wheel and fasten it in
> the same way.
>

To abreviate this even more, the line goes around all four tires at roughly
the 3:00 and 9:00 position. The rear tires will, in a perfect world, touch
the line at both locations of the tire, 3 and 9, and the front tires will be
toed in or out depending on if they touch at the front only or the rear
only. Or some variation on that theme.

This makes sense to me even if I described it wrong. The goal is to
establish the straight lines on each side, then analyze the lines to judge
if the front tires are square to one another. If the front tire is toed in,
then the string should be lifted off the leading edge of the rear tire, and
of the front tire is toed out, then the string should be lifted off the
trailing edge of the front tire. If the front tire is straight, then the
string should touch both the front and rear tires at both the 3 and 9
positions. Do I assume correctly that the string should be as high as
possible on the tire without going above the plane of 3 and 9?

I used a tape measure on my Jeep to measure the front tires only to judge
toe in. The trouble with the BMW is there are significant obsitlces that do
not exist on the jeep, so the same procedure can not be used. I think I can
see in my mind how the string would work, and I wouldn't have thought of
trying this. I think I'll give it a whirl on my daughter's truck. It should
be pretty straight forward because she has a solid axle on the rear, so
suspension variations that exist on the BMW will not be there on her truck.





> The front wheels should always be "toed in" and the line will conform
> to that condition. You have to pull the line away from the sidewall
> at the front of the tire until it is just barely touching the rear.
> It's easiest to do this if you make a set of shallow wedges of wood to
> place under the line as a spacer. By measuring the gap at the front
> you will know the toe-in for that side.
>
> To make it more accurate I have made some small wood blocks with
> double sided tape on one side that I temporarily stick to the rim of
> the wheels to make all measurements. This eliminates any error due to
> tire sidewall variations. When making the blocks you should determine
> what the difference in the front and rear track width is and make your
> front blocks thicker to compensate for that so that the line is truly
> running parallel and square.
>

This is a good idea. The sidewall variations can easily exceed the
specification tolerances.




> With this scheme you can measure both front and rear toe.
>
> Like I said, I should put a web page together for show-and-tell.
>
> -Fred W
>
>

"Jeff Strickland" > wrote in message
...
>
> To abreviate this even more, the line goes around all four tires at
> roughly
> the 3:00 and 9:00 position. The rear tires will, in a perfect world,
> touch
> the line at both locations of the tire, 3 and 9, and the front tires
> will be
> toed in or out depending on if they touch at the front only or the
> rear
> only. Or some variation on that theme.
>
> This makes sense to me even if I described it wrong. The goal is to
> establish the straight lines on each side, then analyze the lines to
> judge
> if the front tires are square to one another. If the front tire is
> toed in,
> then the string should be lifted off the leading edge of the rear
> tire, and
> of the front tire is toed out, then the string should be lifted off
> the
> trailing edge of the front tire. If the front tire is straight, then
> the
> string should touch both the front and rear tires at both the 3 and
> 9
> positions. Do I assume correctly that the string should be as high
> as
> possible on the tire without going above the plane of 3 and 9?
>
> I used a tape measure on my Jeep to measure the front tires only to
> judge
> toe in. The trouble with the BMW is there are significant obsitlces
> that do
> not exist on the jeep, so the same procedure can not be used. I
> think I can
> see in my mind how the string would work, and I wouldn't have
> thought of
> trying this. I think I'll give it a whirl on my daughter's truck. It
> should
> be pretty straight forward because she has a solid axle on the rear,
> so
> suspension variations that exist on the BMW will not be there on her
> truck.
>


Yeah, you've got the picture. And think of the savings at ~$70 per
alignment. The only tricky part is converting the measurements to
degrees of toe-in that are the usual unit of specification. I'll
leave it to you to do the appropriate mathwork or find a suitable
calculator. ;-)

-Fred W

-Fred W