Is DIY front wheel tracking/alignment possible?

[smoker]

Hi,
I've had my '98 xud non-turbo 306 estate for around 20k miles now and notice that the front tyres are both looking quite scrubbed on the outer edges/shoulders. The inner edges/shoulders look barely worn.

The tyres had unknown mileage on them when I bought the car, now plus 20k, so not really moaning about the wear rate, but not sure if the scrubbing is due to misaligned wheels or cornering too hard (it is a bit of a sporty number after all ). I'm pretty careful about pressures so can rule out under inflation.

In the spirit of bangernomics, is it possible to check and adjust tracking easily, at home?

Thanks!

[spider]

I have tried this although it is not that easy unless its miles out in which case you can get it approximately 'straight' , if you think of this as similar to "counting the turns" when replacing the trackrod end for example, its never 100% and should be checked although you can get an approximate setting in most cases.

Although having used an alignment laser tool it does move a lot with a small turn, so its debatable how accurate it would be d.i.y. style with a couple of lengths of (straight) material. You must also take into account any factory set rear wheel geometry as well.

The outer edge wear may well be just over eager cornering though. , they do handle very well.

[Oldpug]

When we had the rally team we used an adjustable bar,but only when we were out on events.It was not accurate and was just to make sure nothing was bent and the wheels were straight,especially if we had replaced any of the suspension.For the sake of your tyre`s life have it adjusted by a professional.

[dieselnutjob]

laser straight line (£7 on ebay)
two bits of angle iron
small mirror

attach angle iron to wheels with string over the top of the tyre
laser line on one, pointing across the car at 90 deg to the angle iron
mirror on the other
laser will bounce off the mirror and back
if the line comes back behind the source it's toeing in
if the line comes back in front of the source it's toeing out

[dieselnutjob]

now for the maths, I think this is right...

my understanding is that 1mm toe in means that the front edge of the tyres is 1mm closer than the back edge, so the actual angle would depend on the circumference of the tyre, but that doesn't matter because it's not expressed that way. It's expressed as a measurement and not an angle.

so, the light travels across the car, off the mirror and back, so 2 X width of car

if the car has tyres of 65cm outside circumference, and is 180cm wide, and you want 1mm toe in, then (180 x 2) / 65 = 5.54

so for every 1mm toe in the laser light will be 5.54mm behind the beam source

I think that's right but it's worth checking for yourself

[smoker]

Many thanks for the detailed replies. Useful to have a better understanding of what's involved. On reflection, I'll probably just cough up for new front tyres and see how they appear to be wearing. If a "proper" alignment is in the £20 bracket I might just go with that if it seems necessary.

As an aside, MPG seemed to have improved a bit over the last couple of tank fulls (up to 56mpg+) - guessing if tracking was way off the extra scrubbing/drag would cause a reduction in mpgs.

Cheers all