Club 80-90 Forums

Hi All,

This is where I got confused. +ve means what? Negative or positive camber? I would have thought it meant positive?

And I've seen my mates race Hillman Imp set up with major negative camber. Wheels leaning out further at the bottom or at point of road contact.

In the link below it describes camber as...

Camber +ve Should be top of wheel leaning out c.f. bottom

https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/St ... /Alignment

What does c. f. bottom mean?

I don't want to this to get too technical. I set this up, after replacing both wishbone bushes, as a precautionary measure to get me to a specialist. Then found the closest firm was a tad expensive. I should have realised this when their home webpage displayed the latest Aston Martin in their hi tec "surgery". They probably would have barred my old scruff of a T25 from their premises anyway .

Is there a way of retaining set camber once you've removed rod, eccentric washers and wishbone? If your wishbone bushes are knackered so is camber setting IMO. Did your mechanic reset camber afterwards? If so, what method did he/she employ?

If you feel better setting at zero or positive camber then that's your decision. I was amazed by the huge amount of adjustment available by turning the wishbone rod through nearly 180 degrees. But I don't think adjustment allows negative camber though? Could be wrong. But obviously do the same for both sides. And be certain eccentric washer slots are lined up in the same position before inserting rod. Use grease to hold them in place.

The important part is to keep an eye on wear patterns. And as mentioned above, if uncertain, use a specialist. Best of all though, is to test drive vehicle and keep a check on premature tyre wear. I get no veering to left or right. No vibration through steering wheel. No difficulty lock to lock manoeuvring (well for a T25 ) and NO unusual excess or strange tyre wear.

Much of this is inspired by the great Covkid, and his superb ongoing article for painting a van for £50.00. In many cases rollering your van may not give the desired aesthetics (depending on user skill level & experience) but keeps the adverse weather off the metal and just as importantly keeps running costs to a minimum. More money for juice and camping

With you there Maxstu. Ha, tomorrow I'm fitting the dreaded rock n roll bed. Put off buying the hinges for two years cos of price but decided there was no other way to do it. Most I've ever spent on the bus to date. Cost more than the entire repaint those hinges!!

In old days with old manual alignment equipment, the spirit level was mounted onto wheel, then turned 180* to check it. This way you could make sure it's 90* off of axle.. In case wheel is slightly bent or mounting is not in same top and bottom.

Toe-in difference (1-2mm) veries depending on how far from axle center it is measured. Wheel rim is approx 1/2 diameter of outside of tire, so 1/2 the tow-in measurement. used to draw a line around tread of tire on center... Jack up wheel and spin it while a nail sticking through a board rubs on tread... leave a nice fine line around tire tread. Do this on both tires and measure distance.. Also roll van back 5 or 6 feet and then back forward after adjusting before measuring to settle suspension after changes.

What does c. f. bottom mean?

Max, cf. means compared with. Sorry, old habits! I've always used c.f. but it's really cf., so corrected on that one!

cf. is an abbreviation for the Latin-derived (but also modern English) word confer, meaning "compare" or "consult". It is mainly used in common and statute law contexts as well as in academic writing.

=====Now, a few things...=========================

That Wiki article was just me stating what these things mean. As above with camber, it's not obvious what the sign convention is i.e. which way things go when +ve or -ve. And of course it matters, a lot!

The Brickyard has all the setting figures. (There has been some confusion by VW over the years about correct Syncro settings, information appears on the Syncronauts Website from various sources. Some mfrs of alignment equipment even programmed in the wrong figures)

On cost and quality... Bearing in mind what we find with some garages today, and esp. quality of staff in some tyre-centres, I might be happy to have all the settings checked and reported by an alignment service, but would be pretty circumspect about allowing them to re-set anything... Unfortunately, they are not always of like mind and seem to want to dive at everything with spanners & hammers before sucking their teeth quite enough for my liking (e.g. a few minutes of error in a setting angle, is better than loosening a wickedly corroded bolt around a wickedly naff bush and re-setting it wickedly wrong!) Just my take, I may be getting cynical in my old age...

The normal setting home mechanics do themselves would be toe-in (or out), and even then takes a fair time to get it right, as needs to be done (or checked) 2 or 3 times rolling vehicle back and forth between checks. One reason is wheel rim deformation, another is any play in rack or tie-rod ends. Also, it used to be quite common to find the rack has been de-centred when doing toe-in amateurishly, by not adjusting both tie-rods and it does matter if it's well out (gives bump steer). Fortunately, unless the steering box splines have been off, T25 steering wheels and racks are very accurately centred and will be noticed.

2WDs have very slight toe-in, Syncros parallel to slight toe-out (but dependent upon ride-height). Toe affects steering sensitivity to knocks and bumps (whitelining) and 'turn-in' and works with caster for straight-line stability.

Camber generally not done at home, but I like the kit MaxStu*

Camber is dependent on ride-height. Rolling about back & forth and re-checking is also recommended for camber.
Waste of time if the top or bottom wishbone bushes are knackered or a ball-joint has play in it. If the eccentric pin doesn't look central in the top bush, that's a clue.

Camber is nominally 0 degrees, each wheel to be within 1 degree of the other. Slight +ve camber on Syncros.
Camber affects the oversteer/understeer, load/temp across the tyre width and ultimate cornering forces more than any other parameter.
As the wheels are turned, +ve caster creates negative camber on the outside wheel,

Caster (Castor is oil from the castor bean, you remember Castrol 'R' )
This is set by the forward radius rods, sometimes called tie-rods so if those big rubber bushes at the front have had it, and the sleeve inside is rotten to the core, then caster will be changing a bit as you brake and accelerate and negotaite corners, much as camber will with a badly worn wishbone bush or ball-joint.
Caster affects straight-line stability and steering weight, as well as changing camber angle as the wheels are turned, increasing neggy camber on the outside wheel with tighter turn radius, a +ve effect.
Critical point here is that they are the same (provided the thing hasn't been badly bent, when it may well require them to measure differently to drive straight and true, ditto camber; until its been straightened!)

Recent discussion about changing these bushes in Tech, getting the sleeves made up (now NLA apparently from VW Spares)... at least, accurately mark the rear backing nut on the rod, before moving it, this is what sets the position & hence caster angle.

b]With rear-wheel drive vehicles it is extremely important that the rear toe and camber angles are checked as well. The toe especially![/b]

Notes:
These settings are not just about tyre wear, they affect steering as well as handling characteristics and they interact to an extent.

These are 'static' but change dynamically with load, load distribution, roll, cornering forces and acceleration and braking. The dynamic changes are set 'by design' and also affected bush compliance.

With independent suspension rear-wheel drive vehicles it is important that the rear toe and camber angles are checked as well. The toe-in especially, as toe-out can cause instability! T25s have very slight toe-in (10'), but the +/- tolerances allow a smidge of toe-out.

NB. If using setting gaps rather than angles, then wheel size will affect the measurement.

Always tighten suspension bolts up with WoW (weight on wheels), esp. rubber jointed ones like top and bottom inner wishbones and shock absorber bolts; a 2nd lightweight trolley jack comes in handy at times like this.

T25s are very robust IMHO, it always amazes even some of the Synro die-hards that after a thorough battering of the worst kind, they can have their tyre pressures checked/reset and then be driven on tarmac again without pulling or behaving erratically nor requiring much attention thereafter. There are of course things that wear out quicker or do sometimes get damaged, but overall, they are very resistant to being seriously damaged or misaligned in the suspension department.

Further reading links:

More about alignment and their effects

Everything you ever wanted to know about tyres (hopefully!)

More on alignment and vehicle stability (or not!)l


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*MaxStu, if you cut a chunk out of your wedge of wood, it will fit right over the bearing-cap, allowing its use at the wheel centreline and a bit more accuracy. I suppose in Scandinavia they wait until the local lake freezes over and use that as a perfectly true horizontal surface!
For the home mechanic, toe-in can more accurately be measured using a variation on your plank idea. The longer the better but must be dead true, and have a chunk cutout for the bearing cap... then prop them at wheel centre height both at the wheel and far in-front of vehicle and some calculations will indicate the toe angle (we could easily create a table of measurements against angles for a couple of distances in-front of the wheel) - much better than that awful 'string' method, which I've never got on with myself much.

Also roll van back 5 or 6 feet and then back forward after adjusting before measuring to settle suspension after changes.

Yes lloyd, whilst I'd do that before changing anything I think, amazing what you find...

NB. Figures are for unloaded condition as a rule (as it left factory I assume)

Thanks HarryMan. I think that about wraps up wheel alignment

Cor, you lot go to a lot of effort to save some money!
I charge £35 to set the camber and tracking.
My equipment is a little more sophisticated than bits of trigs and bailer twine!

You've upset us now Simon

Anyway, all the fun would be gone out of it if we let you loose with your wizardry.

Thats a good deal to be honest and sunstantially cheaper than some of these places are quoting. I'm due to go visit 'Uddersfields national treasure Mr Lunn at some point so may drop bus at yours for an alignment check then!

Unfortunately, it'd cost some of us another £100 to get ours checked 'Oop North' Simon... so we won't be booking it tomorrow.

Cor, you lot go to a lot of effort to save some money!

Call it a challenge, instead.

Besides £35.00 well well cheap. Down here you can add a pony and more to your price any day.

And, for the fun of it, I challenge (case of beer) any 80-90 member to find a retail outlet, within 25 miles of Swanley Kent, that will offer the same service, for same price, as Simon has listed above.

First reply, after varification, gets crate of Fosters or Smiths bitter.

What fun

Bet I get no replies whatsoever.

HarryMann,

Thanks for the enlightening articles and information.

Yes I did consider cutting plank to accept bearing cover for more accurate reading. To be honest my camber readings could be pie in the sky. But at least both sides are roughly heading in the same direction
I did my own version of camber adjustment mainly because I couldn't find anywhere prepared or willing to do it for me. They all had facilities for wheel alignment but not camber. Most weird.

Perhaps I should contact a bodyshop repair business instead. Surely they must have the appropriate equipment?

Hmmmmm,

Well I've had ago today but have a couple of problems..............

First off borrowed nieghbours garage...Thankyou Mr Senior.

[IMG:532:800]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/ ... G_0310.jpg[/img]

Wheels were as expected way out..............

[IMG:532:800]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/ ... G_0312.jpg[/img]

Both camber & toe-in.

Loosened securing nut............19mm

[IMG:800:532]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/ ... G_0317.jpg[/img]

And turned Allen key head (14mm) to bring wheel nearer up-right........

[IMG:800:532]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/ ... G_0318.jpg[/img]

Now to my problems. One turned & adjusted lovely but the other turned so far (about 75% corrected) before stopping & would not turn any further. My question is can these bolts be put in wrongly? Both bolts are faccing forward. Nut is towards front on van. Is this right?

Also are the two ends of the tie-rods the same? Is there the same amount of thread on both ends? I guess that there is. In which case someone had previously adjusted/set toe-in (probably for lowering) but only on one side! Can people really be this stupid?

Hi KarlT,

Firstly ...well done for giving it a go

Secondly, I'm in the library so will reply briefly but cannot hang around for more answers. Will pick up on them tonight at work (but due to computer security cannot always view photos).

Garage floor must be exactly level and all items used true. Otherwise forget the rest.

I noticed your wood is against very outside lip of rim. I did mine on the inner edge (just inside lip... go back to my photos) in case of rim deformity or kerbing. Also how is wood and level mounted to rim?
Camber rods can only go in from rear due to wheel arch restrictions. So yes, 19mm nut will be on front side of wishbone.

After changing bushes a small mistake I made was the eccentric washers not staying aligned for the insertion of camber rod. A lot of wiggling about finally saw the rod push through. However, when I turn 14mm allen key to adjust camber the wheel was restricted and moved through a buckled motion and not a pivotting motion. This was caused by one eccentric washer being 180 degrees out from the other. Sounds familiar?

Got to go, no more time left in library

Another thing. Are bushes are in sound condition? If worn, then readings will be pointless.

Good luck

In which case someone had previously adjusted/set toe-in (probably for lowering) but only on one side! Can people really be this stupid?

That's a classic Home Mechanic job...

Interesting point that the eccentric washes can be 180 degrees out, hope I haven't got mine crossed like that

Suppose we better Wiki something on that