With new tie rods installed, it was time to align the front wheels. My plan was a home toe alignment with strings and tape measure and 
then a trip to Murray’s Auto Clinic to check my work and then set the other front wheel adjustments.
What is a string alignment and how does it work? First a definition: for Sunbeams, the factory toe front toe setting is +3 millimeters, where the measurements are taken at the edge of the tire wall. The front of the tire should be 3 mm inward of the rear. To make the measurements in the home garage, that is without special equipment, one sets up two parallel strings on each side of the car. You can see the yellow string on the left side tied to a jack stand. The string for the right side is tied to the red jack stand. I used the bucket in
front of the car to hold up the tape measure I used to to measure the distance between the strings. When I had the same distance front and back, I assumed that the strings were parallel.
On the right you can see me measuring the distance from the string to the rear of the wheel. You may notice the blue plastic bag under the tire. The bag acts as a lubricant to help the tire move easily on the concrete floor w
hen making adjustments.
I did not take pictures of tie rods and the adjustment process under the car because I was not able to focus the camera. But on the right is the tie rod assembly on the bench. To make adjustments, one twists the rod in the center that connects the two tie rod ends. This changes the distance between the steering assembly and the wheels. This changes the angle of the each front wheel–pushing out the rear of the tire
makes the tire pigeon toed. The two pictures above show that my initial alignment was way off. The front of the tire (left above) is about 35 mm from the string. The rear of the tire is about 55 mm. The workshop manual calls for the front measure to be 3 mm larger that the rear. This would make the front wheels point in very slightly.
In the pictures above, the toe is just about right–41 mm at the front of the tire and 38 at the rear.
The bad news? I took the car to Murray. They put the car on the alignment rack and noticed a bad ball joint. The car could not be aligned without more work.
Sunbeam 