DEARBORN — Fordson High School has received a grant from the Margaret Dunning Foundation to help automotive tech students.

The $28,688.77 grant will help purchase a new four-wheel alignment machine so that the students can learn on current equipment. The new machine will replace a 25-year-old machine with a state-of-the-art Hunter HawkEye Elite Alignment System.

Fordson’s auto tech program follows national standards and is an ASE Education Foundation recognized and certified program.

The new alignment machine will be used in the school’s Maintenance and Light Repair Program consisting of Auto 1 through Auto 6 and is expected to be particularly useful in the Auto 5 class on brakes and suspensions.

“We are purchasing it so students can gain real hands-on experience in performing pre-alignment inspections, measuring ride height and performing precision four-wheel alignments on today’s sophisticated vehicles,” Mark Kent, the lead automotive technology instructor, said. “Additionally, the Hunter Hawkeye Elite machine will allow us to calibrate today’s Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) as well as resetting steering angle sensors. Most of the repair procedures that we are required by the ASE Education Foundation to teach to maintain our certification will require an alignment and steering angle sensor reset after they are performed. Without this machine, a vehicle would need to be towed out of our shop to an alignment shop before it could safely be driven.”

The Margaret Dunning Foundation was founded in 1997. Dunning was born in 1910 in Redford Township and moved with her mother to Plymouth in the 1920s. She went on to be a successful businesswoman, philanthropist and civic booster.

Dunning, who died in 2015 at 104, was a classic car enthusiast and a regular participant in the Woodward Dream Cruise with her 1930 Packard 740 Roadster. Her estate provided additional funding for the foundation to continue to support her interests and legacy.