All home made.
Screws, nuts, string, two pendulum needles (from windshield wipers), printed scales and some square, U and L shaped bars.
The front and rear transverse bars have notches at exactly the same distances, this makes a perfect square.
The exhaust tip is quite handy for supporting the rear and the grill for the front.
Once left and right sides are equidistant you have two lines exactly parallel to the center drive line of the car.
The initial calibration was quite time consuming, but once set-up it’s very simple to use.
Ride height tools were used ofcourse.
Um… determine that, pre-alignment, fix it, then align it?
Just spit ballin’ here…
Kirbert
(Author of the Book, former owner of an '83 XJ-S H.E.)
7
Back in the days of steel wheels, virtually none of them were perfectly straight. Yet many alignment shops used devices that attached to the wheels as these do.
Perhaps true, but that isn’t the point: you illuminate an important other parameter, that one needs to ascertain one’s wheels are true, before an alignment.
Of course, we must assume that the car is straight to begin with.
All modern alignment machines make this assumption as they all base their measurements only from the wheels.