body alignment issue

[pcoghlan]

i have just purchased a nearly new (500 miles) Lone Star and of the few jobs I need to handle one of them is to re-align the body.

It is not a massively noticable issue but looking from the front I see that the body is about .5 to 0.75 inches too much towards the drivers side when comparing the position of the outer edge of each tyre compared to the fender lip, from the front.

At the back the car is the opposite, more tyre showing on the driver's side than the passenger side.

This either indicates that the body is mounted in a skewed fashion (is this possible?), the body has flexed or the suspension setup needs some form of alignment.

Has anyone come across this before and how easy is it to remove/re-attach the body. The previous owner seemed to think it was inadvisable to remove the body?

Paul

[Excaliber]

Body misalignment is pretty common amongst MOST replicas, some more, some less. But start to measure things and your not gonna like what you find. Same thing applies to Detroit type cars, to a lesser extent, but still there, and not uncommon.

It IS inadvisable to pull the body, but do what you must. You may find even after pulling the body you can do no better than what you all ready have. Yeah, I hate it, but thats often the case.

[xlr8or]

Why inadvisable??? If the body is bolted to the chassis and not bonded it should be no problem.

Paul,
Put you car up in the air and measure the chassis to see if it is square. If it is then take measurements to the wheels or ball joints from the frame rails and see if they are the same on both sides. You may find it to be an alignment issue on the car. If everything measures up square then look at removing the body and repositioning it. You might also want to check your wheels. Verify the width and backspacing are the same on each side.

[Tongue Pirate]

I agree. If the body just bolts on & everything else looks square it may be as easy as just repositioning the body. Or is there something here we don't know about?

[Excaliber]

Having a level floor on which to measure with plumb bobs is the key!

[pcoghlan]

the whole 'may not be advisable' thing relates to him saying that Lone Star use some form of bolt/screw that self threads into the chassis rails and once removed it may not go back in with as much integrity. I dont know Lone Stars so I couldnt agree/disagree with this. From all the posts above it would appear that there is no issue in removing/re-attaching the body.

I understand that there are issues with most replicas in getting IDENTICAL measurements etc. I think that if the accepted wisdom is that the body can pretty much only locate in one place due to design then the alternatives are chassis/wheels/flexing etc in which case I will pursue these other avenues.

On my Gardner Douglas the body sits on the chassis but it is possible for it to sit on it but still be up to an inch out. I am aware of other designs where the body will only sit on the chassis correctly when it is in the right position. I dont know which camp the Lone Star falls into.

Paul

[pcoghlan]

Thanks Dave, much appreciated.

I pretty much thought it would be something minor rather than a major problem (bent chassis etc).

I may leave this for a winter project (though I understand it doesn't get very cold here!) and enjoy the car for the summer.

Paul

[2KWIK4U]

Paul,

As far as the rear, the panhard bar need adjustment to center the rear end under the body. Thats a 5 minute project. May want to check the camber up front. Could only be a simple alignment. It looks like you have the LS comp chassis, and it may be a little difficult to skew the body that much without cutting the floorpans out of the body. Mine fit extremely tight into the frame pans and after I glassed them in place I couldn't move the body if I wanted to. Look in my gallery and theres a pic of my body turned upsided down for coating and you'll see what mean. Good luck.

Brad W.

[MoonRunX]

Spoke to Jay. They currently have alignment racks instead of the former pits. Our cars cannot get up on the racks as were too low slung.

Any other ideas out there?

--Madd Professor

[FWB]

ya know your posting to a 4 year old thread?