Hello Fellow Bucketheads & Bucketetts,

I posted this information last year for our own Real T (Frank Alguire) whom I thank for the kind ‘remind’ today. I must give credit where credit is due for the following information. It was actually taught to me by my, now retired, Mobil Engineer friend Clark Kibler. During his 30-year stay with Mobil he spent 5 years in Detroit as Mobil’s Racing Engineer Dept., which is a one-man job. In his travels around the country he observed NASCAR & INDY CAR crews alike, align their machines using this method. Clark has used this method from the beginning of his car building days which includes building some 50 + cars to present. Included was his Bonneville car, runnin’ two different engines at speeds of 183 mph to 214 mph. He ran Fords, a 302 HO & a 351W. One of his current projects is a touring (4 door) T!

All the above is to simply inform you that I ain’t smart enough to figure out somethin’ as good as this here ‘String Fling’ thing. But, I DO think it’s the truest way to get your alignment precise & SAFE.

Before I go any further I would like to mention that the only help I had, when I originally took these pics, was my two girls, Ginger & Blanca. With your permission, I’d like to keep them in the pics although Blanca passed away as of last April. They have always been as much ‘Roadster Riders’ as I will ever be…

I’ll be showing pics of the front-end alignment first, although one can also pull string off the rear tires to find out if they are plumb with the front wheels (once the front wheels have been aligned). If you have an independent rear set up you can find out if you have any toe in/toe out on either drive axle by using this method, as we did with William’s Black T two years ago. His T was ‘lurching and jumping’ around on the road when he let up off the gas. He brought it over from Tyler one Saturday, we aligned the front wheel which were ¾” toed out. Then Clark came over & we strung the rears up & found that the left drive axle was toed in ¾”!! Once that was corrected the car was fine. Don Ross worked on it and has made some new rear radius rods for it, yet to be installed. I took some additional pics today to show what we did.

Hope I’ve made sense with this posting and I really hope it’s something that you can use to make your T more fun to drive and ride in with an additional plus of being more safe.
God Bless,
John

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