I have a friend who is a Toyota tech and offered to give me a free alignment. My car has been moderately lowered for years but I only recently noticed that yes, the insides of all my tires are showing significantly more wear than the outsides. I suspected the problem was toe out and I was right. Over -0.30° toe on each side of the front.

On Thursday my friend put my Max on the expensive Hunter laser alignment rig and went to work on the tie rods. Only thing was, he forgot to put the steering wheel lock before he started adjusting the driver side. He got the toe to within 0.01° of 0 on both sides, but now my steering wheel is not centered! I was afraid of this. My question is, if I adjust each tie rod precisely the same number of turns (e.g. 1/4 turn clockwise on the left and 1/4 turn counterclockwise on the right), will I theoretically be able to recenter the wheel without throwing off the toe much? I want to do this as simply as possible but if I have to I can try the jackstand and string method. Thanks for any insight.

 

You should be able to get it close but it will never be as accurate as with the proper tools. I would just accept the wheel being not centered (if it isn't too bad) or I would talk to your friend and see if he can "warranty" it and center it properly.

 

As long as the car tracks straight just throw a piece of white tape at the top of the wheel and call it a day.

 

Ya but it really bugs me! I'm going to live with it for a while but I'm definitely going to correct it when I find time.

 

So I fixed it! It was really easy. I will describe the process to help others in the future.

I jacked up the front of the car, turned the wheels to the right while working on the left tie rod and vice versa. Then I carefully adjusted the tie rod in the proper direction. You need three wrenches on a 4th gen: 7/8" for the nut, 3/4" for the outer shaft, and 13mm for the inner shaft (it's probably not metric either, but 13mm worked fine).

Since my car pulled to the left when the wheel was dead center, I knew I had to make the left wheel more toe in and the right wheel more toe out. Thus, the left tie rod had to be lengthened and the right shortened. Took a little PB Blaster to get the nuts loose. Since I knew my starting point was almost exactly 0° toe on both sides, I simply lengthened the left rod by a 1/2 turn and shortened the right rod by a 1/2 turn. I tightened it back up and took it for a drive. Now it pulled to the right but not as much. So I repeated the process, this time shortening the left rod by about 60° and lengthened the right rod by the same. Now it is perfectly centered and I'm confident I'm still very close to 0° toe. This process is really very simple.

Since I was changing both sides by an equal and opposite amount, there are no worries about having the wheels on the ground and perfectly straight. The adjustments are relative to the starting point. But if you really want to be sure of your toe you will have to do the jackstand and string method.

 

I have had to do this BS after a few alignments.

 

Time to redo my alignment... got the steering rack a tooth or two off when I replaced it a while back. my wheel is now about 60 degrees off.

 

60 degrees FTL! I was super annoyed with the 5 degrees or so that mine was off....

 

not as big of a deal for me since I'm gripping clean leather. with the wheel in the old position, all the grab-spots are completely worn and there's no leather anymore. (yeah, I know I need to call Wheelskins, but I'm lazy. sue me. :P )