Camber Surprise

[S2central.net]

LOng story short... I swapped a pressed front wishbone out for a forged one to get thru MOT. Fitted a new balljoint along the way but of course had no reference point for position to set camber. I placed the joint mid way between the stops.

Went for a test drive and immediately noticed that while the car still drives straight the steering wheel is hanging to the right now - it surprised me that bad camber would have such an extreme effect.

Unless its a side effect of having different wisbones on each side ?

I havent tried to measure camber yet - any of the suspension gurus wanna taka a swag at guesstimating whether I need to move the joint further in or out ?

[Rusty]

Moving the lower ball joint will also alter the axis of rotation of the strut and thus the toe. I'd suggest this is the cause of the pulling, rather than a pure camber effect.

[Error404]

Camber normally affects the toe in a big way on a mcstrut

[S2central.net]

Sorry - I didnt explain properly... The car doesnt pull to one side... The steering wheel sits off centre now - that is all. Weird.

[Rusty]

Take the wheel off and put it on straight then

[Error404]

don't joke, when I put my car back together I cetnred the track rod adjsuters and found the centre of the rack - then i had to readjust the steering wheel by 2/3 of a turn to get it back to where it should have been.......previous owners eh :bash:

[S2central.net]

Take the wheel off and put it on straight then

That is exactly what I did on the S2 after renewing bottom joints - only one notch on the column as it drove nice and straight but the excessive camber chewed thru the inside of front tyres quite badly.

[johne]

That is exactly what I did on the S2 after renewing bottom joints - only one notch on the column as it drove nice and straight but the excessive camber chewed thru the inside of front tyres quite badly.

I don't believe it would be the excessive camber, it would be the fact that the toe would now be wrong that chewed through the tyres.

It's easier than you might think to get a good idea of tracking by using two 3m lengths of straight 4x2s sitting on blocks at wheel centre height pressed against the front wheels stretching out in front of the car. If the distance between them 3m away measures the same as the distance by the wheels, toe is close to zero

John

[S2central.net]

Well - yes I think that is a better explanation - the camber change pivots the strut and must have altered toe as a result.

I think I'll go back to the pressed arm - the bushes are fine and I can use the old joint as a guide to line up the new one swapped on there.

[johne]

Paul,

There have been threads on here suggesting that our cars handle better with more negative camber than the spec. which I can believe from my experience with minis.

Any idea how much negative camber you'd get if you set the bottom ball joints as far out as they'll go? Would it be too much and yes, I know you'd definately have to reset the toe

John

[S2central.net]

Agreed on the -ve camber thing - deffo works a treat on FWD chassis... I had never really considered there to be much effect on toe as a result. On the S2 I pulled the joints as far as possible to max the -ve camber but I've never measured it... that then gave me the offset steering wheel and poor alignment which chewed tyres quickly... though I think camber played a part in that too - essentially having more work being done by the inside edges of the tyres.

[S2central.net]

So here's my thinking on the camber thing - for me to have offset the steering wheel to the right, by bad camber on the right wheel I must have pivoted the steering rack's natural centre to the right. This means I don't have enough -ve camber on that bottom joint if I am visualising this in my head correctly.

I should really swing on the joint as it is now to get more -ve camber and see if that proves the theory.

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Laughing at that take the wheel off thing, a common fix I would imagine - but that just takes the rack off-centre! These odd one-sided racks are a bit funny but there should be a way to find the centre point (two sided is easier).

[Keeper of The Kitten]

PS - you've pulled the strut more outboard, which pulls the track rod outwards - hence wheel moved to right. This is the right side joint you've replaced?

[Keeper of The Kitten]

(Martin now thinks that's **** about face - is it the left side or the right? Left side pulled out would move the wheel to the right, and vice versa)