Strange camber?

[DOLOMITE 135]

When you move the damper adjusters to the inside it may be worthwhile to swap the damper/spring assemblies to the other side of the car. If the stance of the car reverses this would indicate an issue with them, if it doesn't it would indicate the problem is elsewhere.

[olr159w]

Hi. Thanks. Good idea. Right now in theory the 4mm shorter spring on the NS is making a tiny difference that ought to be acting to just slightly reduce the height differences but swapping over is something that might reveal something. Occurs to me that one possibility is that one spring is HD and the other not. Grasping at straws though probably

thks

[SprintMWU773V]

At least with the Gaz you can easily wind the seat down to liberate the spring without using spring compressors. I would have thought that an HD spring would have the same length as a 'normal' one though but would just be stiffer, maybe more coils?

Either way it'll be good to get to the bottom of your camber problem.

[olr159w]

I'd agree that unloaded they should be the same length, HD or not.

But once on the car with the weight bearing on the shock/spring assys might it not be the case that the non HD side would sit lower since the spring would offer less resistance? Hence that spring would need to be wound up more to achieve the same ride height.

But like I said most likely grasping at straws.

[olr159w]

I'm going to start a separate thread about the uneven ride height. I don't think it specifically relates to this camber issue, which is minor and a lot more recent.

[olr159w]

Recap – after earlier rebuild (per this original thread) the Sprint had vaguely splayed front wheels very slightly akin to a newborn foal. Came to light after also doing some work on sub frame mounts and engine/gearbox mounts. Solution proposed here – make sure everything is tightened up in situ when the wheels are on the ground, check it all looks ok, swap shock sides over and see what happens etc. Actual solution – checked all looked OK, swapped shock assys over and ended up tightening most stuff on the jacks. Two reasons – the suspension moves by definition so the movey parts should move and the clampy parts should be clamped (ie spurious argument) and secondly it’s just impossible to do without having the car on a lift, you just can’t get a torque wrench in place.

I’ve also changed the suspension top mount on one side and now its all back together.

Results – when first returning the car to the floor the negative camber seemed to remain, probably just as noticeably. I had driven it up and down the road before taking a look at this so everything had a chance to settle down.

I needed to revisit the shock seat heights anyway and so had the thing back on jacks at which point I i) took some photos ii) checked all looked good iii) checked the angled front strut tightness iv) raised the ride height on both sides as reqd

I then returned the car to the floor. Having rolled it back and forward a few times– but prior to driving it – I found that a) the NS looked OK b) the OS might still look a bit splayed.

Relatively recent works have included : replace rear subframe mounts, replace top and bottom ball joints both sides, replace and refit shockers a couple of times, replace angled strut, lower wishbone and lower shock bushes with poly, remove and refit AR bar as reqd. No work done on upper wishbone bushes and these may or may not be poly from original rebuild – can’t remember and can’t tell by looking at it! – and subframe shims in place and never touched. The AR bushes and rod ends look a bit rough but everything else looks OK and much has been replaced.

So with the jury out on the OS I just drove it up and down the street again and I reckon its deceptive. The NS looks OK but the OS possibly less good - then again the tracking is way out and its possible the OS is simply toed in a bit making it look different. The only thing that has really changed in the latest step is that the ride heights got bumped up by about a cm each side. The car now sits at around 335mm arch to wheel centre which is 5mm short of std.

Obviously just prior it would have been running around 15mm+ lower. Does lowering the suspension change the camber geometry? Maybe it was just as simple as that if so.

Otherwise I'll see how it looks after it gets some more road time and particularly after I've got the tracking done. My feeling is that if this recurs at this point then it's something pretty left field. I was actually beginning to wonder, given an increasing track record of non-fitting replacement parts, whether the distance between vertical link and ball joint is actually correct on these new replacement ball joints. With everything else being equal something would have to be making the bottom of the vertical link sit slightly further out or, alternatively, making the top sit slightly further inbound.

But for now it's wait and see. Here's some pics of the current "look". Comments welcome.