Negative camber help

[Runner 68]

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Thanks Dude. Gorgeous.
I'll be in touch.

 

[pearljam724]

Thanks, I understand it affects steering and so on. I was hoping to measure it somehow. I’m just going to get camber and toe close as I can. And observe how the tires wear from that point. Then I’ll make a decision on alignment.

 

[pearljam724]

As far as camber is concerned. Most of you may be familiar with the phone app TREMEC used for calculating driveline angles. It’s dead accurate using it for camber. Within 1/10 of a degree. No need to fabricate anything, rely on levels across side walls, etc. With Magnum 500 wheels, they have a large perfectly flat center cap. All you have to do is rest the side edge of your phone across the center cap. It gives you a dead accurate degree measurement. No guessing with bubbles from levels that are sometimes hard to see, etc. My camber reads 1.9 negative. I use that app for leveling anything. You can’t get more accurate using one. With common bubble levels. You can be close to 1 degree off, even when the bubble is between the lines.

I discovered something about the TREMEC app that is very cool. I didn’t think it would work properly for. You can actually turn your phone horizontally flat. It still reads degree accurately as you spin or turn it. In other words, you can use it for toe. No fighting with a tape measure under a car trying to hook a tire tread stretching across to the other side, etc. Only to have the hooked end of the tape fall off as you tighten the slack. Or rigging up string lines, etc. If you have
magnum 500 wheels. Just turn the left or right edge of your phone horizontal and you can adjust your toe to where both front wheels track at 0 degrees for example.
The best approach would be checking the horizontal degree at the rear wheel first. Being the rear is a fixed position. Then check or adjust the same side front wheel to be the same. Regardless, of what that rear wheel degree measures at you have to match that degree. Because depending on the exact angle the car is parked. It will read a different degree angle from zero I believe. You would have to match the rear wheel degree reading. This approach should make the front wheels track perfectly with the rear in reference to toe.

 

[toolmanmike]

You can't measure caster without a alignment machine. Or at least heads and slip plates.

 

[Cranky]

Hey Kern, I straightened out the camber. Piece of cake. Exactly, how do you measure the caster angle ? I found somewhere online that it suggests putting a level beneath the lower ball joint. But, it didn’t make a lot of sense. I understand both sides have to be identical. But, that’s all I understand. Have no clue how to measure the caster degree. Appreciate describing it to me.

You can buy a caster/camber gauge that attaches to the front hub fit once you remove the dust cap and iirc, there are cheap ones and expensive ones. Always intended to get one but never did. Also, having turn plates like Mike mentioned is a big help. You can make or buy them but making them is much cheaper. Two flats plates with grease in between them will be better than none at all.....

From what I have learned, caster is not actually measured like you'd think. The wheels are turned from full left to full right and the alignment rack instruments measure the angles through the range of travel and report the average. My guess is that caster changes a bit through the full sweep.
Ever notice how some cars exhibit a tilting in or out of the wheels as they go full left or right? Cars with extreme caster angles can actually raise the front end in low speed turns as wheel/tire tilts out and rides on the outside edge. It is usually not a problem though since rarely are we going fast enough to scrub the tires at full left or right.
For me, when I am doing a "bonehead" alignment to get a car mobile, I set the alignment cams as I previously suggested, then set the toe. I'll drive the car and see if it shows a tendency to pull to one side or another. For example, if it pulls to the left, I'll take a little caster out of the left or add a little to the right.
As Crankee stated earlier, Caster aids in stability at the expense of steering effort. Our light A body Mopars with manual steering and a slant six had almost ZERO Caster as the default setting mainly to make the car easier to steer. Power steering cars can use all the caster you can scrape up since they are so overboosted anyway.
My Charger has a Firm Feel Stage 3 steering box with Fast Ratio Pitman and Idler arms. First, the F/F box is harder to turn than any original Mopar steering box. Then, The Fast ratio arms increase the leverage and reduce the turning revolutions of the steering wheel from approx 3 3/4 turns to 2 3/4. This adds up to steering effort on par with our 2015 Challenger. The steering feels heavy in a way that is quite good. This setup makes it so turning the wheel is a deliberate move, not likely that I'd steer anywhere that I wasn't planning on going. More caster adds to the effort needed to turn so factor that in as well.

My 71 340 Cuda had the fast ratio box and pitman arm but didn't have the longer idler. It worked fine that way but at full lock, the Ackerman was different from left to right. Really liked the setup otherwise....and man, that's a fine looking Charger you have!

 

[pearljam724]

You can buy a caster/camber gauge that attaches to the front hub fit once you remove the dust cap and iirc, there are cheap ones and expensive ones. Always intended to get one but never did. Also, having turn plates like Mike mentioned is a big help. You can make or buy them but making them is much cheaper. Two flats plates with grease in between them will be better than none at all.....

My 71 340 Cuda had the fast ratio box and pitman arm but didn't have the longer idler. It worked fine that way but at full lock, the Ackerman was different from left to right. Really liked the setup otherwise....and man, that's a fine looking Charger you have!

Thank you. Yeah, I’ve seen those pivote plates you put under the tires. Those would be necessary for toe adjusting. I checked everything this evening and it turns out only my camber was out. I believed that to be the case before I started. Because the car tracks straight as an arrow. I believe having the tires at 45 psi made the inside tread wear worst, combined with a 1. 9 negative camber.
I set tires at 36.5 psi and now have negative .2 camber. That should straighten out the wear.

 

[Cranky]

Thank you. Yeah, I’ve seen those pivote plates you put under the tires. Those would be necessary for toe adjusting. I checked everything this evening and it turns out only my camber was out. I believed that to be the case before I started. Because the car tracks straight as an arrow. I believe having the tires at 45 psi made the inside tread wear worst, combined with a 1. 9 negative camber.
I set tires at 36.5 psi and now have negative .2 camber. That should straighten out the wear.

Actually, the turn plates will help doing all of the alignment adjustments. If you don't use them, you have to roll the car back and forth to let things come into place on each adjustment.