I'm in the process of rehabbing the suspension on a '77 GTB. After taking the front apart, I found the shims on the lower wishbones to be an odd mixture. The left side had no shims at all on either fork. The right side had a 3 mm shim of the front and a 3 mm & 2 mm shim on the rear. Shouldn't the shims be the same on the front and rear fork and the toe be adjusted by the track rod ends? I checked the camber before disassembling and it was -0.5 deg. both sides but all of the wishbone and shock bushings along with the right lower ball joint are shot. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Yes, those bushings need replacement. It amazes me how many folks are driving these cars with bushing that look like that and they say their car drives great. It was one of the first things I did when I bought my car 20 years ago. Replace every bushing and new shocks wanted to have the car feel like new. Regarding the shims. Who knows who did the last alignment/set up. When you replace everything you will be starting from scratch so after centering the rack I'm sure you will get a general idea of what needs to be done. I had mine done by a suspension magician who also put what he said was a more modern setting on the car. I could probably dig through my receipts if you want those settings. He also cornerweighted the car.. I did the same thing when I redid my Boxers suspension for the exact same reasons as the 308. You will love the car when you are done.
Frames not same left to right and many alignment guys correct for road crown by caster difference left to right.
Unless you run out of Ball Joint shim (i.e., no negative shim available) . It would be a strong clue if the Ball Joint was shimmed max in the same direction as the unequal camber shims, but car frames aren't exactly super precision (and things do get a little bent sometimes and don't look terrible), or could just be a screw-up. Without some caster measurements, you can't tell if was proper/reasonable to do or a mistake.
Thanks Steve. The ball joint shims, both upper & lower and left and right, are even. In other words, same amount and thickness of shims on either side of all ball joints. Unfortunately, I didn't do a caster measurement before I took it apart. Just a camber. I am leaning towards balanced shims when it goes back together unless proper caster can't be obtained.
That may suggest that the last person doing the alignment just didn't realize that there was a caster adjustment available at the ball joint connection. If the caster was in-spec, there's not really a specific serious technical problem having unequal fore-aft camber shims. Definitely target using equal thickness fore-aft camber shims, and using the ball joint connection for the caster adjustment, but not a terrible sin if you have to be a little unequal on the camber shims to get caster in-spec.
