What have people found to be good alignment specs for a '62 A-body with manual steering and P205/70R14 tires on 14x6" Cragar S/Ss? The purpose is good, precise street handling.

--DS

redbear@vrx.net

I've played around with this some on my '68 and '64 Darts. For very good tire wear, and improved street handling, I'd go with 1-1.5 deg pos caster, 0.5 deg negative camber, and 1/16" toe. The increased caster will make steering effort increase a bit, but it should not be a problem on your light car. If you want slightly more tire wear and crisper feel yet (especially at high speeds) then use the specs from my '64 Dart as listed in this month's Popular Hot Rodding article.

Probably the best thing you can do to improve handling is to use 60 series tires. I really like 215 or 225/60-14s on my daily driver. They will work fine on 6" rims.

Happy corner carving,

Lou

Good info, thanks.
:
: If you want slightly more tire wear and
: crisper feel yet (especially at high speeds)
: then use the specs from my '64 Dart

I can't find Popular Hot Rodding in Toronto. Can you please elaborate on the specs you use in your '64?
:
: Probably the best thing you can do to improve
: handling is to use 60 series tires.

I think they'd look silly on my car, and my existing tires are in fine shape.

What I would *really* like, however, is to figure out how to get a sway bar(s) onto this '62. The Addco 751 bar is supposed to fit, but keeps looking several inches too wide. Maybe the bar they advertise for the '60-'61 Valiant would fit??


redbear@vrx.net

Dan,

Supposedly, the '63-66 Dart/Valiant bar should work on your '62, but I have no experience. My '64 alignment is set at 2.25 deg pos caster and 1 deg negative camber with 1/8" toe-in (1/32"-1/16" should be slightly better for handling, but worse for tires). This has produced slightly more wear on the inside of the front tires after about 6000 miles and two track events.

Cheers,

Lou

Good tires are essential to good handling. You may not want to go to the extreme of running 50-series tires on 16" wheels as I do (a picture of what this looks like on a '66 is shown below), but stickier tires help. Before I got the rear axle swapped, I was running those tires on the front and the normal 175/80R13's on the back - not good. The front tires were so grippy that I broke the rear tires loose on a corkscrew exit ramp while the front tires held on like nothing funny was going on - a bit of a scary situation.
:
: What I would *really* like, however, is to
: figure out how to get a sway bar(s) onto
: this '62. The Addco 751 bar is supposed to
: fit, but keeps looking several inches too
: wide. Maybe the bar they advertise for the
: '60-'61 Valiant would fit??

I would expect the '60-'61 bar to be a better fit than one for a '63-'66. Does anyone know of any major suspension changes between '61 and '62? They just about redesigned everything for '63...

They certainly are. I'm quite certain that my P205/70R14s are plenty enough rubber for the driving I do.
:
: I would expect the '60-'61 bar to be a better
: fit than one for a '63-'66. Does anyone know
: of any major suspension changes between '61
: and '62? They just about redesigned
: everything for '63...

This isn't quite right. The '62 is the same body shell as the '60-'61 cars, BUT the '60-'61 suspension is those years only. The big redesign happened for '62 , and was carried through until '72 (though component spacing/geometry changed for '67 with the wider A-bodies).

So from a "what's under the car" perspective, the "1962-1966" bar should fit. But it doesn't seem to.

redbear@vrx.net

I haven't bought any of Addco's products recently. But it's been my experience in the past(and from what I've heard from relatively recent customers who are friends of mine) that their bars are fine, but the attaching hardware is a little on the crude, cheap side. Be prepared to want to 're-engineer' the attachments for your application.
Like many vendors, GM Camaro/Firebird, Ford Mustang, and whatever is popular right now get the attention to detail and fit. We get 'also fts Mopar' with some alteration. Throw in the vintage, and the rarity of most of our applications, the expectations of quality and bolt-in convenience just about evaporate.


fglmopar@aol.com

The attaching hardware did bolt right up in my case, but there is one big problem with Addco's Mopar applications: the brackets hang down about an inch and a half below the K-member. It's easy to accidentally hit them on the ground, particularly if you're using stock slant six torsion bars. You can use it all right, but you may want to consider bending the "universal" sway bar bushing mounts into a sort of L shape so they attach to the bottom and front of the K-member.