66 coupe w/all new steering and suspension. When aligning and adjusting camber, is it common for the adjustment to change after simply driving down the road and back? My camber can be off as much as 1 degree after a small drive down the road and back. All is torques down after the adjustment is made and before driving. It's driving me crazy trying to get this camber to stay correct!!
Are you using turnplates or the saran wrap and grease method of allowing the wheels to move outward when lowering it after removing or adding shims? You need to bounce the suspension a few times and there needs to be no resistance between the tread and the ground. If not, the wheels won't return to their correct position until you have moved the car head by 10 feet or so.
Bartl, I'm not using turnplates for my camber adjustment. I simply read the camber angle , add or subtract shims as required to bring into 0 camber..torque UCA bolts, install wheel and lower car and read camber. No matter what the reading is, it will change from .5 to 1.0 degree + or - after I drive down road. I will then adjust shims according to the reading I get after the drive, take it down the tiad again, and the reading can be far outside whatever shim thickness I used. Everytime I do this, I'm either adding or removing shims that I just put in... Frustrating.
I just changed out the lower control arms on my '65 for similar ongoing alignment issues. The bushings, which can't be seen until you remove them, were so completely shot that I wouldn't be surprised if they were originals. Obviously, there was a lot of movement going on down there.
It sounds like you are changing camber without some kind of turn plates or garbage bags or anything. Going to be problematic. The real issue is, once you drive it and measure, if you drive it again, will the measurement be the same or does it change each time? If it changes every time you drive it, you have issues.
If not, try a 33 gal or larger garbage bag all folded up as it comes out of the box. Put that under the tire next time you make an adjustment.
If not, try a 33 gal or larger garbage bag all folded up as it comes out of the box. Put that under the tire next time you make an adjustment.
That's what I'm using, the 3 mil 55 gal contractor bags fold up. Slippery then cow snot. I have no problems turning the wheels by hand in either direction. I would suggest buying a caster/camber gauge. I just lowered my UCA and installed Street or Track UCA. I thought I would be slick and use a digital level and measure right off the steel wheel for camber and between the BJ studs for caster. I found it way too easy to get inconsistent readings more because of me then the actual method.
IIRC from the Ford shop manual, each 1/16" is good for 1/2* caster and each 1/32" is good for 1/3* camber. The difference between front and rear shim packs should not exceed 1/8" difference. So the most caster you're going to get with shim adjustment is 1* The reason you don't want to have more difference is because as the angle increases between the shaft and body, as you tighten up the bolts it distorts the shaft as well as the holes in the body for the UCA bolts, the centers of the bolt holes needs to be closer.
I do have turn plates that I used for caster and toe adjustments. Sounds like everyone is recommending using them to lower the tire onto after a camber adjustment too. The idea being that the tire will easy rest to it's position when lowered and give a more actual camber angle. The camber setting is not changing every single time I drive it. If I set it at 0 degrees, then drive down the road, a re read will be something like .5 or 1.0 degree different than what it was when I lowered the car. I then reshim it to 0, lower car, confirm the 0 degrees, drive the car and it is .5 to 1.0 off maybe in the opposite direction. Never settling in a consistent area/angle. I'll try to lower it w/ the turn plates in place and see what happens. Thanks for everyones input..
Just a thought. Is the ride height always the same. If it's not, the camber is going to be different each time.
Turn plates? Lucky bastard. I saw a set at the swap meet years back, great price. Decided to walk around a little bit and come back because I didn't want to carry them. Needless to say I never got to carry them.
another alternative to turn plates is two squares of that self stick flooring tile with a little grease in betweent them. thanks to shaun at street or track for that tip... the straight edges make determining the angles for measuring caster a little easier too...
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