will an alignment fix my dead steering

[69camarokid]

finally went in today to get my alignment done.
i had settled on 3 degrees of positive caster and .25 degrees of negative camber. does that sound good?

unfortunately after about 10 minutes they called me in and showed me that on my passenger side my upper control arm was missing its bolt and polyuerathane bushing on one side!!!! it had evidentaly goten loose and fallen out at some point. so im now on the hunt for a single replacemant polyuerathane bushing because i just dont have the mon ey for a whole set replacement. im calling santa ana speed, the speed shop near my house tomorrow and hopefully they will have one and we can try this again!

[David Pozzi]

Umm? I just want to clarify the camber? You said 3* to 5* of camber? You meant caster right. Just want to make sure the OP gets the correct numbers. If indeed you meant 3-5* of positive camber Ill have an issue with that. JR

Thanks for catching my mistake!
Yes 5 deg pos caster or whatver you can get.

.25 neg camber or add more if you drive mountain roads or corner hard. We run -1 deg to -1.5 deg but we autocross a lot.

[MonzaRacer]

UHMMM, Caster is a not tire wearing factor, NOW if you add positive caster and your tires wear you might have a weak tie rod,center link,ball joint allowing the wheels to pigeon tow out under hard driving.
I ran on my 70 and 71 Monte Carlo 3 degrees positive caster left 3.5 deg on right, stock toe and I believe I stuck with 1/2 the preferred camber (as in closer to the lower or minimum spec. I ran 15x7 Ralleys and Hoosier Radials tires for many many miles and no issues.
I can tell you I have yet to see a car with high caster ever cause excessive wear if the linkage is tight and of a good quality (ie no Chinese cheapo parts).
Guess I need to startt digging out my old spec books,,,,wonder where they are stored,,,,,,.

[David Pozzi]

If your upper shafts have bolts, they will tend to back out. There are replacements that have a nut which is much safer.

[406 Q-ship]

If your upper shafts have bolts, they will tend to back out. There are replacements that have a nut which is much safer.

Really, I have never seen the nut style from the replacements always the bolted.

Caster should be as much as the front end will take and it will not cause any tire wear issues. Camber is just like David said depends on how aggressive you get with the car. At Guldstrands I would "read" the tires to see what the customer did to them and then adjust my camber accordingly. For a regular driver that didn't get pushed or if tire wear was an issue then 0° to -1/8° on the standard alignment for playing -1/4° then moving up for hard drivers all the way to -1 1/2° for the cometition autocrossers. If you granny drive -1/4° will cause accelerated tire wear.

BTW no body asked if your car has manual or power steering, if you put alot of positive caster on a manual steering car it will be impossible to turn the car at low speeds, for my manual steering GS350 Buick I had +1.0°, it was a bear to parallel park and cracked my girlfriends wrist when she put her hand through the 3 spoke steering wheel in a parking lot (I told her to no put anything in the steering wheel that she was not willing to have removed or broken). I once got the end of my thumb in the grove of one of the spokes and it damn near ripped my thumb off when returning to center.