Caster/camber stuff

morgan · Post by **morgan** » Sun Aug 20, 06 12:10 pm

Hi -

My car now sits at a much better height, but before I can get her tracked up I need to sort out the awful castor(caster?) angle...

Tyres are bald on outside, like new on inside and of course steering is very 'odd' (more so now I have taken some of the play out of it).

I have my technical manual, and it tells me where the cams are on the suspension turrets, (which Blue had already showed me anyway) but that is about it...

I am planning to -
- A take the weight of the car on a jack, so that when I undo the bolts nothing just 'drops'
- Use a spirit level on the rims of the wheels
- undo the cams
- adjust until level.

Is it as simple as that (as if!) or am I being being very silly and should just find a garage that actually understands such things, unlike I !

Thoughts ?

(PS - there now follows some artwork to demonstrate the view from the front end of my car)

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Sun Aug 20, 06 12:26 pm

Suspension adjustment must be made under load i.e. on the ground, not on jacks. I usually place stands under the bottom arms and rear axle if I don't have access to turn plates.

Dave-R · Post by **Dave-R** » Sun Aug 20, 06 1:08 pm

That is not the caster angle in your drawing. That is positive camber.

You need negative camber i.e. the top of the wheel is further into the car than the bottom. But you only need a little bit. Half a degree to one degree is more than enough. Don't go over one degree though.

Adjust the cams for max positive caster first. Then set the camber. You will find that you will be reducing the caster angle as you take the camber angle towards the negative. That can't be helped.

Don't, what ever you do, use the factory settings. They are rubbish.

Aim for around 3/4 degree neg camber as described with 3/32" toe in and try to leave as much positive caster as possible. 2 degrees at least if you can. The more the merrier.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sun Aug 20, 06 9:24 pm

What Dave said! Don't use the factory settings!

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Sun Aug 20, 06 9:43 pm

Morgan, I have a caster/camber gauge you can borrow if you want to have a crack at it, not a hard job.

morgan · Post by **morgan** » Mon Aug 21, 06 9:54 am

Thanks !

Pete · Post by **Pete** » Mon Aug 21, 06 10:44 am

What Dave said

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Aug 21, 06 11:00 am

I bet you kick ass with an Etch-A-Sketch Morgan

Helpful info Dave.

Guy · Post by **Guy** » Mon Aug 21, 06 11:22 am

From memory the settings are different for the o/s & n/s, When I set mine up I used the n/s settings for the o/s and the o/s settings for the n/s to compensate for driving on the other side of the road. The car drives loverly amd straight and used to go round the bends great untill I fitted the 90/10 shocks to the front

Dave-R · Post by **Dave-R** » Mon Aug 21, 06 11:58 am

Guy wrote:From memory the settings are different for the o/s & n/s

The factory settings were yes. But the factory settings are to make the car as effortless to steer as possible. The fact that they were deprimental to handling didn't matter. Remember most of their day-to-day cars didn't even have sway bars.
The factory settings even sometimes demanded negative caster to make the manual steered cars light to steer even though they would then not self-center.

Most British roads do not have a strong camber on the surface and they tend to twist in different directions.
If my understanding of steering geometry is correct (Alex might know better) then I wouldn't like to use different settings on each side of the car unless I was only driving it on a banked oval or on a circuit where you only turn in one direction.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Aug 21, 06 10:01 pm

You are correct Dave. Different settings side to side is not something i would put into a car, and is certainly not something i have come across on any "european" offerings.

Its a shame you can't get more castor with the stock set up.

Dave-R · Post by **Dave-R** » Mon Aug 21, 06 10:06 pm

Yeah more caster would be better but I find it is enough to do the job.

But maybe the faster ratio on my manual steering helps?? There is more effort in turning the wheel so I would guess it would center more strongly when let go?

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Aug 21, 06 11:10 pm

The castor on these cars is not nearly enough for self centering,maybe for a manual box,definatly NOT for a P/S box.Kingpin inclination is a total design hash,more kingpin inclination =better self centering,also lighter steering to a point. Morgan,there is a great bloke in Watford,he also reconfigures steering geometry for leading car manufactures.Charged me £40 quid.

Dave-R · Post by **Dave-R** » Tue Aug 22, 06 8:35 am

Adam68 wrote:The castor on these cars is not nearly enough for self centering,maybe for a manual box,definatly NOT for a P/S box.

But that is the problem with MoPar power steering. It is designed to steer with the lightest effort but it means you need a greater effort in the opposite direction from the road wheels.
But unless you want to fit custom upper control arms you have to live with it. Cheaper to fit manual steering.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Tue Aug 22, 06 11:43 am

I fitted the offset bushes to my UCA's and got a little more castor . Still only about 3.5 degrees max though .