Negative camber?

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GoldDuster340

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I notice a negative camber on the front tires when looking at the front on my 72 duster, i did recently rebuilt the the whole K frame suspension with all new parts.
How do i adjust the front end to remove the negative camber and set it to zero?

thanks
 
You need to adjust the eccentrics on the upper a-arm. Bear in mind, you adjust the caster the same way. It's a balancing act best left to an alignment shop.
 
I've never liked negative camber on Mopars, either, even though that's what the spec calls for. You can go as far as .5 a degree positive camber and still be in spec. Positive camber helps promote good road stability and also gives you some extra ground clearance in the front if you run headers. The road stability part is really important because a lot of these cars you cannot get enough caster in to do the same thing. And I agree that you should find a good alignment shop and let them do it. Just ask them to put camber at .5 degrees on both sides. If you try to do it yourself, without an alignment machine, you'll have it out of the ballpark as soon as you loosen a nut.
 
The optimum alignment settings changed when radial tires came along. Their sidewalls flex where bias ply rayon /nylon tires were hard as a brick.
Offset upper arm bushings are available from Moog. Those will provide more adjustment.
And just for the sake of saying... Some older vehicles , especially chevy trucks, had issues with their frame rails twisting and K members sagging with age. The younger alignment techs that have seen this may suggest this is the fault with your mopar too. He might say "If it was a different design I could add shim packs to correct it but I dont know how to correct your mopar".
Here's the thing though. In a ford or chevy, the more shims he stacks in there the more apt they are to jump out, where as the offset upper arm bushing for the mopar aren't going anywhere.
 
RedFish said:
The optimum alignment settings changed when radial tires came along. Their sidewalls flex where bias ply rayon /nylon tires were hard as a brick.
Offset upper arm bushings are available from Moog. Those will provide more adjustment.
And just for the sake of saying... Some older vehicles , especially chevy trucks, had issues with their frame rails twisting and K members sagging with age. The younger alignment techs that have seen this may suggest this is the fault with your mopar too. He might say "If it was a different design I could add shim packs to correct it but I dont know how to correct your mopar".
Here's the thing though. In a ford or chevy, the more shims he stacks in there the more apt they are to jump out, where as the offset upper arm bushing for the mopar aren't going anywhere.
Click to expand...

THIS post above is all about correct. The old bias ply tires are nowhere as forgiving as radials. The radials tend to need more camber to be in the "same place" as the bias ply. So, they would likely need upwards of one degree camber measured from the spindle...but since camber is measured at the tire, the half degree is still correct. If you were to remove the radial tires and replace them with bias plys, you would likely see a camber increase though, because of the rigidity of the bias ply tires. The two types of tires difinitely align differently, no question. The above post is a great point and often overlooked because radials are 99% of what's run these days. GREAT point, Redfish.
 
You can run a lot more negative camber in a modern radial. And it is very stable, more responsive, and corners way better.

I just got an alignment today at Hotckis Suspensions.

1.5 negative camber
5.8 postive caster
1/16 toe in
.04 rear thust angle (perfect, no shims needed)

Just drove it 60 miles home on the freeway tonight from one end of Los Angeles County to the other. Drives straight with just my pinky finger at 75mph.
 
Here in Australia Ive always set them up with 1/4 to 1/2 NEG cambers,around 1 1/2 to 2 degrees caster with about 1/2 degree offset across the car and around a 1/16 in...I find zero cambers and low caster causes a lot of skittery steering,constant correction and bad feelings on turns...not to mention crap tyre wear!!
 
autoxcuda said:
You can run a lot more negative camber in a modern radial. And it is very stable, more responsive, and corners way better.

I just got an alignment today at Hotckis Suspensions.

1.5 negative camber
5.8 postive caster
1/16 toe in
.04 rear thust angle (perfect, no shims needed)

Just drove it 60 miles home on the freeway tonight from one end of Los Angeles County to the other. Drives straight with just my pinky finger at 75mph.
Click to expand...

Thoes specs does it allply to booth sides,and is that good for my 69 dart,manual steering,oem upper arms and oem bushings.Sorry to high jack
 
autoxcuda said:
You can run a lot more negative camber in a modern radial. And it is very stable, more responsive, and corners way better.

I just got an alignment today at Hotckis Suspensions.

1.5 negative camber
5.8 postive caster
1/16 toe in
.04 rear thust angle (perfect, no shims needed)

Just drove it 60 miles home on the freeway tonight from one end of Los Angeles County to the other. Drives straight with just my pinky finger at 75mph.
Click to expand...

Sure you can. But what I was getting at was that most street driven Mopars won't be able to get the caster figure you have. If they get 3 degrees, they will be lucky. This is why I was suggesting the positive camber,to aid in some road stability not able to be gotten with caster. What kind of suspension do you have?
 
Snake said:
Thoes specs does it allply to booth sides,and is that good for my 69 dart,manual steering,oem upper arms and oem bushings.Sorry to high jack
Click to expand...

No you probably will not be able to get those specs. You also might not want to run that much caster with a manual steering car. If you are just tooling around town, putting on 10K miles/year, and not concerned with performance handling, you don't need to run that much negative camber. Stock setting is fine.

I could get 1.5 neg camber, 4.0 positive caster, and 1/16" toe in with moog rubber offset bushings (PN7103) installed for more caster. Rest of the stuff can be stock bushings. But that was my car. They all very. I seemed to have better luck than most getting those numbers. That was before I put the Hotchkis TVS system on my car.

But if you run poly strut rod Bushings, you need to cut the rear bushing back to stock thickness to get the lower control arm (LCA) back to is more forward stock position. This is were I saw the Hotchkis adjustable strut rods really help things.

They were able adjust those so the LCA moved freely up and down and the LCA poly bushings were snug against the K frame BUT the LCA moved smoothly up and down bind free. A lot of times when people run poly LCA bushings the LCA will not seat against the K-frame properly.

This is the rear poly strut bushing I cut back years ago:

Hotchkis7_27_10TVSbuildSm04.JPG


Now with the complete Hotchkis TVS system I installed, sky is the limit. :cheers:
 
StrokerScamp said:
Sure you can. But what I was getting at was that most street driven Mopars won't be able to get the caster figure you have. If they get 3 degrees, they will be lucky. This is why I was suggesting the positive camber,to aid in some road stability not able to be gotten with caster. What kind of suspension do you have?
Click to expand...

To get those current numbers I just installed a complete Hotchkis TVS system.

I know people that have got up to 2 degrees postive caster with all stock stuff with under 0.5 negative camber. Got to have a good alignment guy that is willing and able to use his head.
 
autoxcuda said:
To get those current numbers I just installed a complete Hotchkis TVS system.

I know people that have got up to 2 degrees postive caster with all stock stuff with under 0.5 negative camber. Got to have a good alignment guy that is willing and able to use his head.
Click to expand...

Well.....you're talkin to one. LOL What i was gettin at, is most people don't have your setup so they have the stock restrictions to work around. While negative camber is great for auto cross and road race stuff, on a stock suspended Mopar, that cannot get a lot of caster in the alignment, some positive camber will help it not feel so squirrly on the highway. Know what I mean, Vern? You gotta really nice little car by the way. you got some better pics?
 
StrokerScamp said:
Well.....you're talkin to one. LOL What i was gettin at, is most people don't have your setup so they have the stock restrictions to work around. While negative camber is great for auto cross and road race stuff, on a stock suspended Mopar, that cannot get a lot of caster in the alignment, some positive camber will help it not feel so squirrly on the highway. Know what I mean, Vern? You gotta really nice little car by the way. you got some better pics?
Click to expand...

I have had lots of people ask me about alignments on old Mopars over the years. Many have reported getting around 2 deg postive caster with stock stuff. But the common thing between them is that they had a good alignment guy that understood what was going on and could adjust a car beyond what the machine held his hand and told him what to do. They are many guys that do alignment that are "toe and go".
 
"But if you run poly strut rod Bushings, you need to cut the rear bushing back to stock thickness to get the lower control arm (LCA) back to is more forward stock position."

Would it not be easier to leave the stock rear bushing in? Wow I don't who designs these bushings, but what did they use for reference when they made them? I regret now buying my set. This stuff is scary. Is it possible to get a good alignment done with poly bushings. I don't need perfect. Just something good enough that it doesn't pull to one side or wear out half of my tire.
 
yellowghost said:
"But if you run poly strut rod Bushings, you need to cut the rear bushing back to stock thickness to get the lower control arm (LCA) back to is more forward stock position."

Would it not be easier to leave the stock rear bushing in? Wow I don't who designs these bushings, but what did they use for reference when they made them? I regret now buying my set. This stuff is scary. Is it possible to get a good alignment done with poly bushings. I don't need perfect. Just something good enough that it doesn't pull to one side or wear out half of my tire.
Click to expand...

You should be fine to get an stock numbers alignment. I would be nice to have over 1 degree of postive caster. That will make the car track much better at highway speeds.

That's why the Hotchkis adjustable strut rods come in handy. You adjust them so the LCA moves freely up and down with no binding.

Did you notice the roll pin on the strut rod was much closer to the washers for the bushing. Sometime people can't even get the roll pins in with poly strut bushings.

My brother has a 70 Mustang. Those cars have braking strut rods (radius arms) also. Do these poly bushing in the lower middle look familiar?:

08516lg-01.jpg
 
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