Howdy folks. It's your friendly neighborhood Stooge here with another do-it-yourself thread. A few years ago, with the help of fatbillybob, I lowered the ride height on my car. It improved the handling, and look, but it also increased the negative camber. So much so that it really eats through tires. Since I have been driving my car more lately, I have really used up the tires, and I don't want to have to keep buys tires for this things every 5000ish miles. I wanna increase the life span of the tires. So to do that I'm gonna have to dial out all the negative camber. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The camber on the rear wheels is adjusted via shims on the bottom a-arms. That is the only place you can adjust the rear alignment. The shims come out the slots on the bottom of the subframe. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
For the most part the retaining nuts on the left side of the car you can get too without much problem. However the right side of the car is a bit more troublesome, especially the a-arm bolts towards the middle/front of the car. To be able to get a wrench on them I needed to remove the cross brace from the subframe. They are held in place with 19mm nuts. There really isn't any room to move a wrench with the brace in the way, so it had to come off. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
With the cross brace out of the way I now could get the ratchet, with a 22mm socket, on the nut. When you are loosening the nut you don't have to take it all the way off. You just need to back it off enough to move the bolts about an "1 inch, because the shims just slide off. You'll see in a moment. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Now to get the a-arm bolts to slide out, position a floorjack under the axle hub, and then jack it up, so that the suspension starts to compress. This will get the bolts to slide out as the suspension compresses, and it will stop because you still have the nuts on the a-arm bolts. The shims should start to drop out as the bolts are moving. If they don't all come out, you can use a screw driver to wiggle them off the bolt, and out the slot on the bottom. The shims are U-shaped so you don't have to remove the bolt completely, just enough to get the shims off. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Once I removed all the shims I tightened all the nuts back up, so that the a-arms are now held in place against the subframe, shimless. By removing the shims the bottom a-arms are no longer pushed out and the negative camber is removed. Now my alignment isn't perfect, but I have dialed out all the camber. I still have a little bit of negative camber, because my car is lower, but it is nowhere near what it was. The shims I pulled out of all 4 a-arm bolts was daggon near 3'' thick when all stacked up. It's no wonder I had so much camber, and the tire were wearing out so fast. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Now yes, I know, I still have to get it properly aligned. But the main reason I did this was because I didn't want my brand new tires getting the insides scrubbed to crap on the way to the alignment shop. I guess I could string the alignment, but it got dark, and I'm too lazy to do it right now. Anyhow. That's how you adjust the rear camber in a 348, Stooge style. Happy wrenching.
Remember that those points also adjust rear toe and chassis thrust any of which could be off with your camber. I don't need to tell you about the potential rude surprise because the 348 chassis is very subject to suspension setting and ride height. But those who are not in the "know" becareful even driving to the alignment shop because you can take a naturally twitchy 348 and mess with the alignment and have a really bad day.
Thanks for the heads up Chubba. Yeah I already know that, but I did all of them evenly. They are no shims at all. Drove it home from the tire shop on the freeway and it drove fine. Even did a short burst of spirited driving around some corners. I can tell the difference. The car "drifts" a bit more now under throttle. Instead of it just pushing, I can fell the rear just a hair loose. Which is just fine, it's more of a neutral set up I'm after. I'm not setting it up for racing on the track. It's being set up for tire longevity. The fronts do still have the negative camber, because i didn't mess with them. It's going to the alignment shop anyway, because it needs the toe set as well as the camber.
Bring a bucket of chicken wings to my house. I got everything you need to dial any suspension you want. Then we can take a drive to Bruce's and heckle him.
Hmmm..... A trip down to the fatman's house to string my car. Are we talking mini Stoogefest here????
There's a somewhat similar "shim" setup on 360s. Getting camber adjustment done at the tyre shop is a pain because of the amount of work required to add or subtract a shim. Setting toe is a doddle but. I used an app on the phone called TiltMeter. I got a plank of wood and cut it so that it went perfectly from one side of the wheel rim to the other. Lay plank across wheel vertically and phone on top and take reading. It's surprisingly accurate and allows you to get very close to where you want to be so that you minimise time at the tyre bay. It also allows you to figure out what an extra 1mm does to camber. In the case of a 360 +1 mm on both lower arm bushes = 0.40 degrees. It's different on the front end where +1mm = 0.25 degrees.
Ah what a good alignment can do. Thanks for the invitation to come over and align it at your place fatboy, but I already had an appointment with the shop today. The guy was very good and fast. He had me all done in less than 30 minutes. He has a drive on pit, and use the levels with the bubble. "The bubble never lies". When he took the car out for the test drive he even chalked the center of the tires. That's OLD SCHOOL! Needless to say, I'm happy with my new alignment. Now to put a load of miles on it.
Bob's Wheel Alignment (818) 709-4227 10036 Canoga Avenue Chatsworth, CA 91311 I only had him align my fronts.
