February « 2009 « Tom Hoppe

Archive for February, 2009

Car in the shop and PBR

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

So my race car is in the shop. Since I’m the DIY type, it doesn’t happen that often, but after the ARRC wreck, I decided to have the car checked out by Trever, who is the one that built it. I looked it over at the house and it doesn’t actually look too bad. The only thing out alignment wise was the right front camber and toe. Looks like the upright got bent. The other 3 wheels where right in sync with each other and not even more a smidgen. The bottom subframe, which was 1/16″ away from the header looks to have maybe moved in the accident, hit the header slightly cracking it, and then moved back. Since thats a $$$ custom header, figured, lets have it fixed by folks that know more then I do.

Once Trever gives the car a thumbs up, I’ll be taking it over to the body shop to have the rear quarter panel dents touched up and sprayed over with red paint. I might take it home inbetween and see how much of the body work I can touch up to save money. We’ll see. Since I need new fenders and a new front bumper cover, I decided to go with a slightly different paint scheme for next season. I’m going to cover the hood and fenders with carbon fiber look vinyl, so I don’t have to paint. And then extend that vinyl into the doors with some kind of design. The front bumper will stay “factory black” as its just easier that way.

Also yesterday was about the nicest day in the last month or so here, so we went out to the dog park with a couple of our friends and out for some beers and pizza. They had $5 PBR pitchers which I couldn’t pass up I was actually pleasantly surprised at the taste of PBR being sober, as I usually reserve PBR for the end of the night once I don’t care about what I’m drinking.

Posted in All, General, Pictures | No Comments »

Cheap Digital Camber Gauge

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

Update: Read on for the gauge part, but now I’ve finished off the alignment toolkit with a Ryobi self leveling laser. Put that baby in the middle of where the car will be, and use Home Depot $0.59 vinyl floor tiles to get the work area absolutely level before you use the following gauge. With that projecting a horizontal level laser and a ruler at the corners to setup the tiles, you won’t ever have to zero it against the ground anymore (every time you power it off, it goes back to default). I’m within 1/16″ at all 4 corners, with the highest corner getting 0 tiles, and the lowest corner getting 9.

A few years ago I used someone’s “Smart Camber” digital camber gauge. It was awesome! You could zero it on the ground and measure your camber on uneven ground with 0.1 accuracy. I was going to get my own, but the $250 street price kind of discouraged me. Being the DIY type, I decided to make my own.

Take:

(1) Digital Level from Sears with 0.1 accuracy which can be found on sale for $35
(1) 20in long, 1″ wide, 1/8″ thick piece of steel from Home Depot Racing
(2) 1″ long 1/4″ thick metal spacers from HDR
(2) Allen head 1.5″ bolts
(2) Nuts and washers

Drill a hole on one end of the sheetmetal, then 3 holes for 15, 16 and 17″ wheels on the other end. Put in the bolts into the spacers, through the sheetmetal and throw a washer/nut on the other end. The pictures at the end of the post show what I’m talking about. The level attaches to the sheetmetal and is very sturdy as it has a nice big magnet in it.

edit: This part is no longer necessary if you do the above laser/floor tile leveling of your surface. Only if you are doing this on uneven ground. To do an alignment, just set the gauge on the ground in front of your tire and level out to 0 with the “zero” button.

Then place against your wheel and do a tiny bit of math. 88 degrees on the gauge = -2 degrees camber. Easy, accurate to 0.1, and under $40 including all materials. It’s been working great the last season and between this, and stringing up the car for toe, I can do pro alignments in the garage or the pits whenever I please. After the lift, the Jeep went to the shop for an alignment, so I got to verify the accuracy of the gauge and it matched their Hunter machine.

I’ve thought about making a better mount for the level, which would allow me to zero out the gauge vertically, but this has been working so well, I never bothered. If someone comes up with something better, send me a note.