I'm working on a couple of items on the rear suspention today and have a question about camber. I am curious if there is a chart that will help me determine what my camber is set at. I can measure the angle with a large carpenter's square and a tape measure at top and bottom of my rims, but have no way to convert that info for my 16's. I found a chart on Pelican for 15's but not 16's. Any Ideas? ....and if you would suggest a nice mild street camber so I can know just how far I am off. Thanks guys.

 

OK, I'm just about at the half way point. Now I know why I don't have a parking brake. I have no pads on the drum liners. Well, I have about half on each one with a horrid jagged edge and raw metal where pad use to be. I'm guessing my next major fix is going to be liners, rotors, and pads.

Back to the original question....on my 16's I had a negative camber totaling 3/8" on the driver's side and 5/8" on the passenger. I now have only 1/8" on the drivers side and am about to do the same on the Passenger side. I have no idea how many degrees this is, but it looked good.

 

Hi Doug,

As you know, the surface that your car sits on must be perfectly level to make any meaningful measurements. If its not, you should roll the car onto some shims so that get get accurate and useful data.

Camber measurements are generally done from the wheel hub, but one could do something using a 24" carpenter's level (shortened to fit your wheels) and a digital protractor.

I think you want something in the 1-1.5 deg neg range for good handling,....

Stay well,

 

Steve I was beginning to think I was talking to myself. every time I have a suspension question you come thru for me.

How to I go from carpenters level and protractor numbers to digital degree numbers? At this point the top of the rim is 1/8" further in than the bottom. Am I close?

Believe it or not I got up super early and pulled the car into the garage (play room) that not only has a nice flat surface it is a nice industrial tile that is as smooth as glass. My wife was rather torqued but I promised her a tire rotation on her E350.

The second one went easy and I got it on the first try. I would hate to think how much negative I had on there before you sold me the Bilsteins. That helped, but I think this is really gonna make for a nice street ride.

 

Nothing to fear,..I talk to myself most of the time,...

The issue is the accuracy of the protractor. The difference in tire wear and handling is resolved within 2 degrees and that requires accuracy to prevent the rear tires from becoming roasted. I'd have to sit down and do some geometry to see what 1/8" extrapolates to in degrees across 16".

Good man,...

Factory spec is 1 degree neg, but I like a tad more when bending the car around corners.

 

That sure settled the car down. I could tell on my first hard corner that the car isn't rotating on it's rear axis.

Great right!!! Not so fast....., just when I think it's gonna fishtail as usual she's gonna plow full steam ahead. What have I done???

 

Hi Doug,

Last night I started to finally tackle the rear suspension on my car, and I get a call from one of my friends who is stranded out of town with no fan belt. This is the 911 with a stripped alternator shaft and a home-made thread repair.
So, long story short...I would have a pic posted by now of my "Draco Meter" camber gauge, but instead I'm going to get some sleep, at 2:50PM.

I have been tweaking and fiddling with my front camber, and I will post a pic of a tool to work on front camber. As Steve pointed out, the problem is an uneven floor. Concrete especially can be wavy and uneven. My solution is to use a digital level, and to take the tool with me and make several measurements, and average them out.

I learned that the best you can do is probably get a close approximation, and having even camber from left to right may be more important the the overall degree of neg camber.

On my RSR struts, I think I max out at about 1 deg neg. But I have not scraped off the tar and gone for the maximum.

I will try for about 1 deg. neg on the rear, probably later tonight or tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh shoot, I forgot to mention: Draco has a pic of the Draco Meter camber gauge on his toe alignment thread.

 

Well I just got my math handed to me by my 5th grader. She said that if the wheel is 16 inches and off by a total of 1/8 of an inch then it is off 1/16 of an inch at it's radius or at 8 inches. So she gets out her protractor and a compass and draws me an 8 inch arc and draws 2 lines one is 1/16th inch up from the other at one end and touching at the other. With an overlay of the protractor I get an Ah hah, and she declares I have less than one degree of camber. I know she meant negative camber. Leave it up to a 5th grader. Sheeesh!

 

I built the draco meter too and it works well. Even if the floor is slightly uneven it still can get you very close

 

Doug:

Just use your computer and google up "Geometry formulas", or similar. You have the hypotenuse (16") and one of the sides (1/8") of a right triangle. You can solve for any of the angles. I did this when I aligned mine a couple of years ago, and checked it with a Smart camber gauge and it was all the same.

You're playing with your camber and messed it up? Did you check your toe for movement?

 

Clive, brings up a good point. I did not actually use a protractor to determine the angle as I'm guessing Steve, Rusnak, and Draco are describing. What I did was follow an old home made method that instead used a carpenter's square and a combination square. the carpenter's square was set up plumb at the center of the wheel and the combination square was used to determine the relative distance at 12 and 6 o'clock. When all was said and done I had a distance of exactly 1 inch at the bottom and 1-1/8 inch at the top from the rim to the carpenter's square. This gave me my 1/8 inch measurement.

A cool little trick was to scribe a mark on the eccentric as a reference. It made it really easy to duplicate what I did one side to the other.

The 12mm Allen was a trip. Why is it so close to the sway-bar?

Oh, one more thing....the 4 pound hammer is your friend.

Where is the Draco method thread?

 

Crap Ed, you are way to smart. I was thinking about toe all day. This was obviously my first time in there and I sure tried to keep it all as tight as I could. At this point I've got a lot more reading to do. It would seem to me that as soon as I loosened up the four bolts my old toe angle was gone. Is that right. Do the same four bolts control the toe? I was thinking I had messed it all up and would be going back in so tell me the truth....I can take it.

 

Scratch the last post....I'm now reading page 440-11 in my Bentley.



......I don't think I jacked it up too bad if any.

 

Here is what I use to measure camber.
A straight edge and a digital level. (calibrated beforehand)
The car is not on level ground in this shot, so I don't really have 2 deg neg camber.

 

Get a piece of good flatbar, 1 1/2" or wider, 2" is better. Cut it the diameter of your wheel lips and use this as a pretty accurate plane on which to measure camber. Not as sexy as a camber gauge, but it works with some triangulation.