Why are these alignment specs different?

billcu

billcu

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French_Mark 8 needs the front end alignment specs for his 95.

I told him that I would send him the specs from my 94 service manual.

Charlie (Roadboss) sent me the specs for a 96 and (just) the toe values are different (front and rear).

Does anyone know why?

Does anyone have the toe specs for a 95?
 
Did Roadboss get his from the shop book too? I have a real shop book here. Some go by Alldata, which is not always right.
 
Well we know in 93 the air-ride heights were different. But I cant think of a reason for a change in 95 to 96.
 
unity said:
Well we know in 93 the air-ride heights were different. But I cant think of a reason for a change in 95 to 96.
Click to expand...

Unity, what are the air ride heights for the 93? I didn't know that they were different. I've heard that the gen II heights were different, but I'm not sure what they are either.

The heights (from the bottom edge of the wheel to the wheel well lip) from the 94 service manual are:

Front: 24 1/2 inches
Rear: 24 1/4 inches

Also do you (or anyone else) have the toe specs for the 93?

This stuff has got me curious now.:)
 
This afternoon, I will look on "Mitchell-on-Demand" and get the specs for a '95. If I can't find them, I will get them off of our alignment machine Monday afternoon.
 
Spyder, we've got the specs for the 95 in French Mark 8's original thread.

I started this thread to try to find out why the specs for the 96 were different than the 94 and 95 specs (sorry for the confusion).

If you could, could you post the specs for the 93? I'm curious now to see if they are different also.

Charlie, thanks for the ride height info for the 96. The tolerance of +- 1/4 inch is the same in the 94 book.
 
Bill, I was referring to the drop height - should have specified. At highway speeds and at park the 93 has a more aggressive drop. For that reason the alignment specs may be different.
 
Bill, will do, I plan on posting the specs Monday evening, so stay tuned. The only problem I can forsee is: would there be a difference between aligning the Mark with Air Ride still on it, and a Mark with the Coil over conversion? We have the Hunter 811 with lasers at the shop, but I am a little concerned that the specs will be diffferent between the converted and non-converted Marks.
 
We were'n't talking about converted cars. The differences Bill is noting are from the actual FOMOCO/LINCOLN shop manuals for each year vehicle. He is curious as to why there is a difference in the spec.

My understanding on the vehicle height at alignment check is that the air ride should be switched off at ride height. which means having the key on until the system fills and then turning off the trunk switch before the vehicle goes to park height.
 
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I always thought that the air ride should be at parked height for an alignment.:)

I checked the manual and it said that the air ride self test should be run before the alignment is done.

I'll run the self test later today and see if this height is actually the ride height or the parked height.
 
Driller, you are correct sir. I opened my manual again and read right above the specs.(Curb height with 1/2 tank of gas). Sorry for the mis information.
 
I ran the auto test on both of my Marks yesterday. It looks like the test does leave the cars at "curb height". Both my cars were within 1/4 inch of the posted heights. I'm going to recheck my heights in the next few days as I drive it to some more even parking lots and driveways, to make sure.

The manual can be a little confusing about the heights. In the suspension section, it says that the auto test should leave the car at "Trim height". In the alignment specs, they call it "Curb height".

The suspension section also says that at approximatley 65 mph the suspension lowers the vehicle "trim" for a more stable high speed profile.

I'd sure like to know for sure what they mean by the word trim.:)
 
I was given the heigth information, I originally passed along, by a now retired front end mechanic who was apparently wrong. But, I never questioned it as I thought it made sense to me that you wanted the wheel alignments made at a point that the car was functioning in most of the time.
 
Yeah, I've had to argue with a couple of alignment technicians before.

One told me that I didn't have to even turn my air ride off!

Another one wanted to align it at "the normal" (higher) ride height. I really wish that I had my own alignment rack.:)

The way I look at is, I would rather have the alignment done at the lowered or highway height (not sure what to call it now:) ) because that's where I put most of my miles on in my cars. I'm not sure how much difference the .8 inch difference makes, but if Lincoln says that it's in spec, I'm good with that.

Also, around town at slower speeds I usually lower my cars a bit with my Module VIII anyway, so I'm closer to the lowered specs anyway.
 
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