Hunter D111 alignment machine..Anybody use one??

[Spiderman]

I'm looking at buying a used Hunter D111 Total 4 alignment machine but have never used one.

Would you need a 4 post lift or a 2 post lift to raise the car. With the 2 post would there be some kinda swivel support for the wheels?

Here is the unit in question.

 

[M5 LiTE]

I'm looking at buying a used Hunter D111 Total 4 alignment machine but have never used one.

Would you need a 4 post lift or a 2 post lift to raise the car. With the 2 post would there be some kinda swivel support for the wheels?

Here is the unit in question.

I had a Hunter P211 with a Challenger 2-post drive-on lift. It had rear slip plates and front turntables in order to align a car. The rack was leveled when you put these legs down and then lowered the lift onto the legs. I had the wireless laser heads (not the photo reflective ones). Pretty damn quick and accurate. Not quite a P811 or P611, but very nice nonetheless.

Regardless of the type of lift, you would need front turntables and rear slip plates to allow the tires to move during the alignment process.

IIRC, all of the D-series Hunters have proprietary computers whereas the P-series have PC computers (albeit modified to accept all of the inputs). The nice thing was that if the P-series computer died, you could easily replace the parts needed to fix it. Mine had a 80486 proc and the power supplied died. Replaced it with a junker supply that I had laying around and I was up and running. Had it been a D-Series, I would have to of called Hunter and ordered some high-dollar part and/or had a Hunter service tech come out a day later to fix the computer.

 

[bmwpower]

Curious, how much does one of these run used? Maintenance?

 

[kartracer55]

Thats a 20 year old design according to the Hunter site. Dont bother with it, it will be more trouble that its worth. I learned to do alignments on a similarly aged Hunter alignment rack and its a royal pain in the *** compared to the machine I use at work. No battery head's means you need to step over wires all the time. If you really want it get it but honestly, I can think of a bunch of things Id rather spend the Cash on.

If your a shop, why not make a deal with another local shop? Since we can do inspections and alignments we do alot of work for other shops. One shop has an older alignment machine and they dont bother doing thier alignments, they just use it as a 4 post lift and let us do thier alignments because we can do them quicker and more accuratly. If its just you and you have a really big garage, why bother? It will take up way to much space for the amount it gets used.

Jim

 

[wilbilt]

I used an A-111, a C-111 and a 411 over the years. They were all good machines for production aligments. The technology has advanced, I'm sure, on the current offerings.
A drawback I can see to owning one for home use is that software updates and calibration services are not cheap. Doing 10 alignments a day at $40-$50+ helps pay for the maintenance on the equipment, but if it's in your garage at home...? They do require fairly regular calibration, and can even get goofy on really hot days.

I have been thinking about just buying a good magnetic camber/caster gauge and a set of turnplates. Slower, yes...but more reliable and low-maintenance for the home shop.

As far as a lift, I have used single-post ingrounds and four-post. Many years ago, we had a Hunter Light-A-Line in front of an inground frame-contact lift. There were four stands (turnplates on the front ones) that got set under the tires, and then the car was lowered onto them. The problem was that with different vehicle wheelbases, the stands were never really level due to being set on different spots on the floor to accommodate variously-sized cars.

My favorites were the 4-posts, because they are the sturdiest. A couple of rolling jacks are mandatory, but you don't need to worry about flipping the car on your head when you really need to crank on something.

I almost forgot about one...H111, I think. Nice and portable. Easy to roll into another bay to do motorhomes, etc., right on the floor.

 

[Spiderman]

Thanks for the advice.

One of my concerns is the age and being able to update and maintain it.

The reason I need one is I have a 1960 Impala that is 18' long and lowered. It's getting harder and harder to find a place that has a machine that the car will fit on and equipment that fits in the wheel wells. I've heard many times "we just got this new machine and it won't do your old car but our old machine would have".

 

[wilbilt]

I can't speak fur current models, but older models up to the 411 have the option of only hanging the front heads if the rear wheelwells are the problem.

Doing it that way means that centering the steering wheel must be "eyeballed", but that's how it was done back in the day anyway.

Keeping the software updated really isn't a necessity, as it usually just means that the stored specs are added for new vehicles. Sometimes new features are added, but you probably don't need them anyway.

All of the Hunter machines will allow you to enter and store your own specs, although the process is a little tedious on machines without an actual keyboard. You don't even have to enter the specs as long as you can read the screen and compare the readings to a set of specs that are in a book or in your head.

If you can get it cheap enough, it might be worth paying the $$ for the local Hunter rep come by and give it a once-over and calibrate it.

 

[Spiderman]

I bought a 1986 model Bear engine analyzer fer cheap thinking I could have it updated for my 93 Nissan. Wrong! A couple year newer model would have worked. But it was cheap enough that I won't loose my *** on it.

So that experience is still fresh and I don't wan't to have something noone will work on if it needed to be fixed.

 

[bigdav160]

One of my concerns is the age and being able to update and maintain it.

No more updates for that machine. I gave mine to a local high school.

I wasn't worried about updating the specifications as that just gives you the pretty red and green on the bar graphs.

Mine burned up two monitors within a year and they were not cheap.

 

[kartracer55]

The machine I learned on was a C111... Checked today. Pretty much useless for us at school as it wont do to many of the cars left on the road.

 

[daveloveless]

be carefull,there are no parts for this through hunter.i have one of these machines that works well once you get the hang of it.depending what is aligned it doesnt matter what lift you use

 

[fordbroncodave]

i have a hunter P111 for sale for $250 cash.

same unit as the d111 but it is updated and a smaller cabinet size