A quick and easy check is to sight or use a laser pointer at night on each tire and see where they converge in front of the car. If the beam does not converge you have toe out. You next do some geometry to calculate how far in from of the car the beams should meet based on the measuring width of the tires and the toe in angle.
I use the Chitwood stunt driving technique. With the car travelling at 34 mph, I use a ramp to launch one side of the car up and proceed to drive on just two wheels. If I have to turn the wheel toward the ground, I have too much toe-in on that side. If I have to turn away from the ground, I have too much toe-out. After making adjustments and repeating the test to confirm accuracy, I use the ramp to launch the other side into the air and repeat.
When both sides have been adjusted this way, toe is perfect and the wheel is centered.
I dunno. Maybe QDM has the right idea.
That's the best method yet. I am a veteran of many attempts at DIY front end alignment. Considering the cost and time involved, the $45 I paid for my last alignment is a bargain. And my tires are finally giving me some decent life.
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Years ago my best friend had flipped his truck on a windy back road, and it was so bad that just looking at the front wheels, even Stevie Wonder would tell you that they weren't pointing anywhere near the same direction. I helped his dad do a "redneck alignment" with twine checking the front tires in relation to the back. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough that we were able to drive it to a shop to have a real alignment done.
A quick and easy check is to sight or use a laser pointer at night on each tire and see where they converge in front of the car. If the beam does not converge you have toe out.
You gotta have very good eyes to see miles away in the night.
Not to mention you need a perfectly flat, remote, empty place to do that.
Then it has to be very clear outside.
Then you can't distinguish between zero toe and toe out.
Then... why do I even bother?
Welcome to the real world.
You gotta have very good eyes to see miles away in the night.
Not to mention you need a perfectly flat, remote, empty place to do that.
Then it has to be very clear outside.
Then you can't distinguish between zero toe and toe out.
Then... why do I even bother?
Welcome to the real world.
With a 1 degree toe in the beam should meet at 37 feet assuming a 6 foot wide distance between side walls where you place the sighting device. If sighting by eye you do it in daylight! Half a degree toe in would be 75 feet.
I don't know what kind of trigonometry you learn in US, but where I live the formula for measuring where 2 laser beams meet at 1 deg. toe in for one wheel is:
d = (track width) * tan(89)
which for a medium track width of 6 feet gives us d=343 feet
For half degree toe in, we get d=686 feet, and the more we get closer to zero toe (toe that most cars should have), the more laser beams meet ad infinitum.
Furthermore, a wheel alignment is done with respect to a known good reference, rear wheels. Trying to align 2 misaligned front wheels one to each other without having no clue what 'straight forward' is for any of them, is plain stupid.
So if I were you, I'd stop here, before embarrassing yourself even more.
I had a little problem with the radian conversion but you are off by a factor of 2 since both wheels aim in a one degree so you should meet in the center ahead of the car at 169 feet. But you get the general idea that the distance is easy to measure to get accurate results since a half a degree is a difference of about 170 feet.
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