Camber in solid rear axle cars

Ron Earp

Ron Earp

Administrator
How are people getting camber in live axle cars? About the only way I can figure is to bend the rear housing and axle tubes or cut them off and re-weld them. But, this would cause some issues with bearings, sealing, and lifetime, not to mention would be illegal?

R

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Ron Earp
NC Region
Ford Lightning
RF GT40 Replica
White Jensen-Healey ITS
Silver "Skull" 260Z ITS
Email: "rlearp at gt40s.com"
 
Hmmmmm.....maybe I should have searched for this first???? And I run a damn forum for god's sake, I should have known better. So I take it this is a "grey" area? Kind of hard to be grey if you've got a solid axle car and I'm looking at it and it clearly has 2 degrees of negative camber, but I suppose it could be bent in an accident or a manufacturing snafu. Or sitting on a hill in poor light. I suppose.

R



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Ron Earp
NC Region
Ford Lightning
RF GT40 Replica
White Jensen-Healey ITS
Silver "Skull" 260Z ITS
Email: "rlearp at gt40s.com"
 
If I may recap. one side will say that no factory spec exists for the camber on a live axel car so you can certainly search junkyards for ones that are bent in the manner you would like. while you can not perform an unathorized modification, because there is no spec if you have one that is properly bent, then how can someone say it does not conform.

The other side will say, of course they do not give a spec everone knows it should be zero.

Dick Patullo
 
Some FWD cars with solid rear axles have rear camber adjustable with tapered shims. Alignment shops will have those shims in stock.
 
<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">so you can certainly search junkyards for ones that are bent in the manner you would like. while you can not perform an unathorized modification, because there is no spec if you have one that is properly bent, then how can someone say it does not conform.</font>
Click to expand...

Or find one, say, in my garage where it came to rest after two friends that I didn't see dropped it from 10' onto two 6"x6" wood blocks without the pumpkin being supported, but held level, thus bending the axle tubes up 1/4"?


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Ron Earp
NC Region
Ford Lightning
RF GT40 Replica
White Jensen-Healey ITS
Silver "Skull" 260Z ITS
Email: "rlearp at gt40s.com"

[This message has been edited by rlearp (edited July 26, 2005).]
 
In the old Trans-Am days, you could order a houseing from many locations, that had up to 2 deg neg camber per side. Most all used floater rear ends, so the axles had splines on both ends. Then the axles had the splines cut on a radius. By doing this the axles could move around in the center section and at the hubs without binding. The people that tryed this by bending the houseing at home with a press and torch, sometimes would not last a full day without the bearings failing or worse. If you try this on a non-floter rear end, about 1 deg per side is all you can get without problems. It also uses HP because of mis-alignment. All my RX-7s in the 80s had this with no problems.

[This message has been edited by Dick Elliott (edited July 26, 2005).]
 
Originally posted by wbp:
Some FWD cars with solid rear axles have rear camber adjustable with tapered shims. Alignment shops will have those shims in stock.
Click to expand...

Exactly. These shims are tapered. Used in a pair, you can gain neg. camber as well as toe out/in at the same time. We used them for years on our 3rd gen Civics.
 
The most blatant example that I've ever seen of this approach was in the trailer of the Saleen ESCORT endurance Mustangs, back in the late '80s. They had a rack of rear ends with camber adjustments noted on them in white paint pen. And they were NOT all symmetrical, I don't believe...

K
 
Ron: My Shelby Charger has a similar setup. The spindle is mounted to the axle with four bolts that can be shimmed for both camber and toe.
 
Ron, do a dab of weld on the top side of a axle tube & witch the negative camber grow with the size of the weld dab.

Have Fun
wink.gif

David
 
So, this welding on the tube in the localized top area heats that up, and then on cooling bends the tube up?

R

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Ron Earp
NC Region
Ford Lightning
RF GT40 Replica
White Jensen-Healey ITS
Silver "Skull" 260Z ITS
Email: "rlearp at gt40s.com"
 
Originally posted by rlearp:
How are people getting camber in live axle cars? About the only way I can figure is to bend the rear housing and axle tubes or cut them off and re-weld them. But, this would cause some issues with bearings, sealing, and lifetime, not to mention would be illegal?

R
Click to expand...
 
I have done several VW rear axles by cutting a slot behind the stub axle mounting plate, carefully measuring and rewelding. Along the way I found steel shims which I used to make any fine adjustments needed for proper rear wheel alignment. In my opinion there should be no more than 1 and 3/4 degrees negative and very little tow. Striaght is probably best.
 
Actually a smidgen of toe-in is good on the rear of an FWD car. Zero is OK too.

I rate bending live solid axles with tweeking the unibody on a frame machine. Do you realize the "official" manufacture's tolerances on dimensions?

Cheers.
 
Originally posted by Chuck Davis:
I have done several VW rear axles by cutting a slot behind the stub axle mounting plate, carefully measuring and rewelding. Along the way I found steel shims which I used to make any fine adjustments needed for proper rear wheel alignment. In my opinion there should be no more than 1 and 3/4 degrees negative and very little tow. Striaght is probably best.

Click to expand...

You DO realize that, for SCCA IT at least, the legality of those actions is, shall we say, dubious at best....



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Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
ITA 57 RX-7
New England Region
[email protected]
 
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