77`Camaro alignment / caster ???

[ACII]

Hy all

at the moment i am doing the alignment of my pickup...as u know i do have a 77 camaro subframe installed...

Before i go to a car workshop.....i want to do the frist setup by myself..

At the moment i am playing with the shims on the upper a arm..

Therefore pls let me know how many shims u have installed ???

I would like to have a huge caster ..... hope u can help me ....

Thanks
Achim

[mr48chev]

It doesn't work that way. You can't go on how many shims someone else has in their rig because everyone is a bit different even though they came down the assembly line one behind the other.

You have to factor in what kind of driving was done in the donor, what engine had if it ever hit anything including a big pothole or curb along with general wear.

A good starter setting for most roads would be 1/2 + camber in the drivers side wheel 1/4+ camber in the passenger side wheel and 3 degrees + caster in both wheels with 1/8" Toe in . From there it gets fine tuned to drive straight down the road and return to center after a turn. Usually 1/4 more + camber in the left wheel than the right will compensate for the crown in most American roads so the truck or car drives straight down the road. The negative camber that some Ricky Racers call for is great for Autocross but will usually eat up the inside tread of spendy tires rather quickly in road driving.

I did a ton of alignments over the years that I worked as a front end man in both tire stores and dealerships and while you can pretty well expect certain models to react the same as others of the same model when you install or remove a certain thickness shim there is no set starting place that matches what others did.

If you don't have a caster/camber gauge you are pretty much peeing into the wind and hoping to not get your pants wet anyhow when it comes to guess and by golly home alignment settings.

What I would do if I were going to drive it to the front end shop rather than trailer it is put about 3/8 inches of shims on each bolt and take a level and get the tires to stand up straight at static height by changing shims around. That would be 0 camber. Then set the toe in at 1/8 inch and you can drive it to the front end shop without grinding the new tires off because it is so far out of alignment.

[Bad Apache]

The subframes varied in construction when built. So someone else's shim count will not get you the same alignment results that they have. I'd do it by eye and take it to the alignment shop directly.

[ACII]

Hy all

thanks for response..

Here in Germany its pretty hard to find any tire shops which can handle a car with this kind of setu (shims e.g.)

So i will give it a try and buy some stuff like this here + some turntables

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sealey-Tools...item58bb3aadb7

Do u have any experience with this tool .??? What do think about it ...is it worth to give it a try ??

In my garage i have a good flat clean ground ....with a pit

Cu
Achim

[Bad Apache]

Wow I can't believe shims would be hard to do. Adjusting an Audi's toe is miserable compared to this set-up. There is some trial and error, but you catch on quickly. Shims can be made from different thickness washers they have laying around. Guess it's too simple, lol. The gauge you referenced will get you close enough for a weekend car.

Good luck with it!

[Trucknut57]

You can always check this site for a ton of information on the front suspension; http://www.nastyz28.com/

If you can't find what your looking for on this site, go into the forums section in the suspension and ask your question in there.

[mr48chev]

Aligning a car with shims isn't difficult or hard and anyone who is worth his salt as an alignment tech should be able to figure it out. It's still caster/camber/toe in and just a different approach to getting the settings you want than a car with struts on it. You put the gauges on it, check what you have and decide what you need to do to get it where you want it to go. Most guys are going to decide it's a lot easier than what they are used to working on.

The big rub may be that they don't stock shims but I kept used shims in every shop I worked in and reused them. New shims are nice because they jump up and down and wave at the customer while hollering "look at me" when the customer looks under the hood to see what you did. Meaning that New shims show the customer you did something while reusing old shims out of your shim pan may not look like you did anything to the customer but the way the car drives should tell the tale. If there are salvage yards with some old 70's early 80's GM cars in them that have front ends that use shims close by I would be headed there with a hand full of wrenches to harvest an assortment of shims. A guy can make his own out of flat washers but that is a lot of work.

Unless you have far more spendable cash than the majority of us and more power to you if you do, a caster/camber gauge and pair of turn tables is going to cost several hundred US dollars in most cases unless you get a bargain on a used set. That might not be productive $$ wise compared to finding someone who can do the work.

[MARTINSR]

The heck with sub frames could be different and all that, how about the simple face that someone welded the sub frame onto the truck and in this process it could have been welded onto the truck with a caster +or- 5 degrees or more just by how it was welded on!

This is why the angle of the upper control arm shafts should be matched to what it was on the Camaro it was taken off of!

This is without a doubt the biggest mistake made with "clips".

This can be rough checked by looking at the lower control arms to be sure they are level.

Brian

[butchp]

I set mine to 8 degrees which is the same as the camaro I got the sub from.

[MARTINSR]

Let me clarify what I am saying. You want to set the upper control arm shaft angle the same as the stock Camaro, NOT the Caster, that you can set at anything you want by bringing in or out the upper control arm shaft with shims.

What I am referring to is the angle of the sub frame when it's welded to the frame. If you were to only be looking at how it "fits" to the frame you could weld it in too low or too high in the front and then you possibly wouldn't be able to get the caster you desire by shims but would have to get an offset control arm shaft to do it.

If this angle is set up properly you can align it just as if it's still on the Camaro.

Brian

[mr48chev]

Originally Posted by MARTINSR

Let me clarify what I am saying.

If this angle is set up properly you can align it just as if it's still on the Camaro.

Brian

WORDS TO LIVE BY ON ANY SUBFRAME JOB.

That is where all too many guys make a huge mistake, They try to dial in extra caster or their own specs by dinking with the angle that the subframe attaches to the original frame away from what it would be.

I've been involved in several including two of my own and this is what works best.

Set the truck up with the frame exactly level at the static ride height you want to end up with (do not worry about rake or stance at this time) Rhe frame rails have to be absolutely level.

With the subframe blocked up or on a jack at it's stock ride height from the floor (no tires) slide it up to the frame you are going to graft it to with the subframe being level as it would be on the stock vehicle.

Then you fit and graft it together and as he said above you should end up with a truck that drives exactly like the donor rig did to begin with.

Changing the angle of the control arm shafts from stock by angling the subframe ends up giving you a frame that is bent at the joint with the stock frame for any and all practical purposes. This is also where you ended up with a cobbled up truck that body panels won't line up on and the drive train won't line up without issues.

Back to the original subject:
No matter who does the alignment it is still Caster/camber/toe in. It doesn't matter if you use the Snap On Bubble gauge out of the bottom of my tool box or some $100,000.00 computerized alignment rack that gives a three page print out.
The GM front ends with shims are one of and probably the easiest front ends to figure out and align that there are around. It's pretty positive results, take a shim out or put one in or move one from front to back and the results are instant and after you did a couple hundred on the same model quite predictable. A whole lot easier than loosening the bolts that hold the strut to the spindle, moving the strut in or out and hoping you get the bolts tight before the blasted thing moves on you like you have to do on almost every rig with struts or as I have discovered lately with the Jag XJ suspension I have basically taking the ball joint out to move shims to adjust the caster.