Alignment at home and aftermarket UCAS too.

[Kern Dog]

The left ball joint is out.
New Moog K 783 is in.

This one I had in the shed. I bought another from the NAPA store. Sadly, they aren’t dealing with Moog any more. They had the RH ball joint on the shelf but can’t get new stock unless they hammer out a deal with Moog.

Back together and here is what I found.

It looks like the negative camber is back where it is supposed to be.

I put masking tape on the rims with L and R to identify each side for pictures. See that the left side is back to approximately 3/4 degree of negative camber as I was supposed to have.
Right side:

Just shy. It is still about 5/8 a degree. Not terrible but not exact. Next up, I’ll check caster on the left. The fresh ball joint restored camber. That is good.
The right ball joint was bought today but looks the same as the left. It may seem meticulous but I’m glad they match. It is funny how some things matter to us and other things don’t.

 

[Kern Dog]

Here is the caster.
Left:

I expected some change but didn’t see much.

2 1/2 degrees is less than yesterday where I had about 3degrees.
Right side:

I see 3 1/4, the same as yesterday.

I’m going to mess with the UCA cam
Bolts to see what I can learn.

 

[Kern Dog]

I mentioned before that when I assemble a Mopar front end, I put the UCA cam bolts in the same way in every car.
The front bolt gets adjusted like so:

This puts the front section OUT toward the fender. The rear goes the opposite.

The welded in washer pushes against a ridge and moves the rear section IN toward the engine. This is a baseline setting from which the alignment guy can adjust. It gives the most caster but can be at the expense of too much negative camber. This is how I has this car set up when I took it to the alignment shop. Afterwards the car drove fine so I didn’t question their work until recently.
I noticed that all four cam bolts in the car were not like I set them up. That is fine IF the numbers are right.
The numbers weren’t. As you could see, I was sort of close on negative camber but nowhere close on caster.
I just cranked the front cam bolt OUT and the rear IN.

Okay, I’m a little strong on negative camber at about 7/8 degrees. Camber of this amount won’t chew tires. Check out the caster.

Yep. 5 1/2 degrees like the man had said… except this is where I set it, not him. Could the cam bolts have clocked out of position over time?
I am not one to automatically bad mouth a business but this seems strange.
This at least shows me that the car can get those great numbers.
Maybe mom was right. Maybe I’m not as ugly as I thought.

 

[kreauto]

Your both doing it very well. If you watch the camber degrees move when turning your first cam bolt. Whatever degree you move it on the first cam bolt, move the second cam bolt back to the same degree you started and your camber change will stay the same as when you started. On a Chevy classic it would mean taking a shim out of the front and putting it in the back. Therefore the camber stays the same in a perfect setup.

 

[kreauto]

I believe it didn’t slip or the difference wouldn’t have been so close together. Standard practice is 1/2 to 1/4 degree more on right wheel to make up for the crown of road to keep it from not drifting off to the right.

 

[Kern Dog]

It just got a little weird.
I adjusted the cam bolts on the right side. Front bolt out.

Rear bolt in.

Now the right reads maybe 1/8 degree negative camber but 5 degrees caster.
Strange.
Any adjustment to add negative camber will also reduce caster. To clarify….The front bolt can move in to gain negative camber but it also takes away caster. I could shim the lower ball joint over to get more negative camber and still have the caster , right?
What if the alignment guy also saw this and just got as close as he could but still lied about the numbers?
I’m a big boy… I can handle the truth. Why not tell me what really happened? This isn’t some boring commuter car.
I’m learning that there is a factor of give and take where one adjustment affects the others. I thought I’d go ahead and swap in the QA 1 UCAs next and align to that combination.

 

[64fury74charger]

KD your attention to the details is refreshing and I am following this project closely and I sincerely appreciate your patience to take the time and pictures to share this information with everyone on this site.

My own front end has limited upgrades because it’s 74. I had considered either buying or making my own alignment tools because finding a good alignment shop for our cars is challenging. I have done many driveway alignment some years ago using what was available to “ measure “. Thank you KD.

 

[Kern Dog]

I’m glad to help. I love this stuff.

These are the original UCAs to this car. They currently have the Moog offset bushings.

These tubular arms feel heavy.

Wait, 5 lbs?

What are the stock ones?

Whuuut?

The QA 1 arms are a half lb heavier each. That was a surprise.
Their bump stop pad is in the right spot.

These slipped right into place. I greased the Zerks and the lower ball joint.
There is still more to do. I need to replace the RH lower ball joint and swap in the RH QA 1 UCA. if my toe plates arrive tomorrow, I’ll be able to finish.

 

[kreauto]

If you thought your car felt good before. Just wait you will be amazed at the difference the aftermarket arms make. Your correct sometimes moving one affects the other. I don’t have the answer to what is the correct camber to prevent tire wear and still bite good in corners for street driving. Maybe someone that road races can chime in. I do know anything more than 1/2 degree negative will start to increase inside tire wear. Maybe not right away but it will.

 

[Kern Dog]

Negative camber in numbers of a degree or less shouldn’t be a problem if the toe is set right.
I’ve run in the .75 range for hundreds of thousands of miles (collectively) and while I do see a difference in wear on the inside, it is a fair trade off in my opinion.
Just to recap…
The LEFT side with the new lower ball joint and stock UCA with offset bushings was actually able to get 1.5 degrees negative camber and 6 1/4 degrees caster when I maxed it out yesterday. With some adjustment, I was able to get it to the .75 neg camber and 5+ degrees caster just as it was. The RIGHT side is the issue. I can get the 5+ degrees caster but only 1/8 degree of neg camber.
Now with the QA 1 UCAs in place I should be able to get the caster without losing camber.
I do have a fix though.

This has been covered before but I’ll mention it here for those that haven’t heard. The lower ball joint also acts as the steering arm between the center link and the wheels. It locks into the lower control arm and can only articulate…however the steering knuckle/spindle….
Time out. I have to get this out.
This is not a spindle:

That is a steering knuckle.
This is a spindle:

The part that the disc rotor or drum hub rides on is the actual spindle.
Moving on…
The steering knuckle is attached to the lower ball joint with two robust bolts. If you were to put thin spacers in between the ball joint and the knuckle, you would increase negative camber. The amount of change is entirely dependent on the thickness of the spacers.

 

[Kern Dog]

I just noticed something.
Look at the meager surface area to the right if the mounting hole.

This is a 73+ B, FMJR knuckle.

It seems like the spacer might provide some help. The casting flaw is common but may be limited to the later knuckle. The A body version was cast a bit thicker and heavier.

That is an A body knuckle on the right.

This one is similar to the knuckles in my car.

The spacers are available from
Mancini racing and supplied by AR Engineering for $24. I didn’t see a thickness listed but they claim to be worth 2 degrees of negative camber abs look about 3/16” thick, maybe even 1/4”.
Two degrees is too much though.
I found two pair of washers here. My dial calipers aren’t precise enough to measure down to the thousands but tge gold pair measured .10 and the gray were .09. Using my trusty wall chart…

The approx .09 is around 3/32 or half the thickness of the AR engineering spacers.
This is all guessing though. I could just go ahead and test fit those washers and see what I get…
Stay tuned!

 

[Kern Dog]

Todays fun included some learning.
I bought some grade 8 washers to use as spacers. These are .90 thick.

The right UCA was swapped along with the lower ball joint.

A bit of chassis grease on the poly bushings and they slided right into place.

I was able to back out the bolts without disturbing the brakes. .90 washers are visible here.

Tire back on, time to see what base line I’m working with.

Oh boy. That is 1 1/8 degrees negative. That is a bit strong.

Holy crap… that is almost 8 1/2 degrees of caster! Can you have too much caster with power steering? I am not sure but I dialed it back a bit to….

 

[Kern Dog]

Now it is time to make the left side match the right. Here is the baseline.

The caster is close but how do you take out caster while maintaining camber?

Look at the control arm and imagine the front of the car is to your right.

Moving the arm away from you toward the engine results in negative camber but equal caster.

Moving the front part of the arm IN does reduce caster but it adds negative camber.

Moving the rear part of the arm in adds caster and removes camber.

Right now, I only have those .090 washers/spacers on the right side. If I put them in on the left side, it would add Negative camber but then allow me to crank the rear bolt OUT to reduce caster while getting the camber in line.
However....

I could crank the front cam bolt IN which would remove some caster and add some negative camber.

 

[64fury74charger]

Seems like a little can create a lot…..interesting

 

[Kern Dog]

Turning the cam bolts to change the readings....It is interesting how sometimes you turn a bit and see little change, then other times you turn just slightly more and end up going past your target.
The right started off at over 8 1/2 degrees of caster. I turned the front bolt IN slightly and it went from 1 1/8 degree of N camber to about 3/8 degree. I also found that yes, the cam bolts can shift around a bit. I didn't tighten the nut on one quite enough....I was just in mock up stage but it should have been tighter. It slipped and ended up at 2 1/2 degrees Neg camber!

 

[kreauto]

You my friend are experiencing the normal issues of alignments when you truly can set your readings you want. The camber won’t change if you move the front the same degrees as the rear but the other direction. In other words if the front goes in on the cam bolt then the rear cam bolt must come out the same about. This being done perfectly would result in caster changing only. That caster being that high I’m not sure? I was hoping someone on here that road races would chime in. High caster returns the wheel back to straight ahead, thus giving a firmer feel to power steering.

 

[Kern Dog]

A guy at tonight’s Mopar club meeting has 8 degrees of caster in his 71 Cuda. He is fine with it.
It costs nothing to test and assess.

 

[Kern Dog]

 

[CoronetDarter]

Maybe mom was right. Maybe I’m not as ugly as I thought.

Mom's are always right.

 

[Kern Dog]

I noticed this a moment ago.

On the left side, the rear section of the tubular arm touched a metal flange on the frame rail. A few seconds with a die grinder helped.

I actually only pulled the UCA to add grease to the sides of the bushings. The right side got a slathering and doesn’t squeak. The left side made some noise.
It should be quiet now.