Still going on with this :/

Took it to have the camber checked, waited 2 weeks to get it done at a garage with sensible prices, took it down... "oh no sorry we can't do it with non-standard wheels as all the measurements are wrong".

A - They are the same size as the 15" Factory Option.

B - Erm, why are you using numbers out of a book? It cant be that hard to do it looking at the car itself damnit.

Dad has an idea that as the wheels are attached via a Pivot, if the suspension is old and compressed, that would affect the ride height of the rear and also the angle of the wheels on the road. Had a quick look and it seems like one side sits a little lower than the other at the rear, too...

Had new tyres on the front, and the fronts moved to the rear and its wearing through them too now so I needs this fixed.

The rear of your car is unlikely to have any [meaningful] camber change in heave, so I wouldn't have thought that was the cause.

To measure camber you need:
string (about 20" long after tying on the weight)
a weight (a 19mm socket is a good weight)
A rule or ruler

Tie the weight onto the string, ideally so that the CoG of the socket (pretty much the middle of the socket) is inline with the string when suspended. Then hang the string, with weight, next to the wheel centreline. Measure the distance between rim and string at the top and the bottom in millimeters (or half millimeters if you have vaguely normal eyesight).

Then do some very, very basic geometry to get the camber angle of that wheel.

tan(camber°) = ((top measurement - bottom measurement)/rim diameter at point of measurement)

Total cost to check camber angle £0.50 (assuming you own something like a socket set). £3.50 if you don't.

Take your time and this method will be as accurate as you will get in a garage with ease.

Do this all round and compare with the manufacturer figures.

messing around in the snow isn't fun...

Rear left has 2.5° positive cambera, rear right is fine.

Rear left now has 0.5° negative camber as the rear right has 0.5° postive camber.

Also seems to have some toeing that 2 garages with fancy lasers couldn't pick up. WTF!

On the road to fixing it... sort of.

Fancy lasers are prone to error. But you cannot go wrong with string - unless you are blind. Even a bog-standard mirror based tracking gauge is better than 'clever' lasers. Lasers, however, do attract more business, as the man on the street is fooled into thinking they're better.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Fancy lasers are prone to error. But you cannot go wrong with string - unless you are blind. Even a bog-standard mirror based tracking gauge is better than 'clever' lasers. Lasers, however, do attract more business, as the man on the street is fooled into thinking they're better.

That's because they are better. They just need a good operator.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Fancy lasers are prone to error.

Yes, most commonly when the person operating them is a total plank.

Reminds of the phrase "computer error"... Ha!

PS: Jakg - you should ask for your money back from the planks in question!
PPS: Aha, just checked the post where you mentioned the lasers, and you actually mentioned then that they couldn't check the camber (wow!), just the tracking... So, just a crippled test station, rather than operator error as such.

But even a dunce can use a bit of string - it's impossible to do it wrong, as you can see the string, you can easily check they're parallel, and so on. Lasers, whilst they can be as good or better, never are in commercial tyre centres (or even in better establishments).

The trouble is, people rely on 'modern' stuff to be right - they trust the lasers. But what if they're not mounted properly. What if they aren't parallel to the centreline of the car?

Don't get me wrong - I can see the benefits of lasers - you can't trip over them, and they don't move in a breeze or sag under their own weight - but even the 'good' operators in commercial workshops are trying to do it as quickly as possible, and probably don't understand the influences of tracking on car behaviour anyway... There is a reason they work in a tyre fitters, and it's not because they are suspension gurus!

P.S. I'm not claiming to be a suspension guru either. Having chatted with the designers and engineers in charge of departments at Lotus it's clear I know pretty much nothing in comparison.

3 garages i've taken it to (picked up some tyres today) have said they don't have the equipment to do camber, which is odd as I just spend £60 on a Sealey tool thing that is designed to do just that...

String says toe is ****ed so need to play with that today, too. Just amazed none of these garages noticed it was ****ed and tried to charge me to fix it rather than saying "its fine guv".

Bring it here on Saturday and I'll set the front toe and (if I can / if it's possible) set camber and rear toe* for free.

*or at the very least advise you on what needs doing/replacing.

Front toe is fine, rear toe is the issue I think.

Thanks for the offer, but work calls on Saturday, sort of hoping I can DIY it otday...

Quote from Jakg :

3 garages i've taken it to (picked up some tyres today) have said they don't have the equipment to do camber, which is odd as I just spend £60 on a Sealey tool thing that is designed to do just that...

Yeah, quite bizarre.

Quote from Jakg :

String says toe is ****ed so need to play with that today, too. Just amazed none of these garages noticed it was ****ed and tried to charge me to fix it rather than saying "its fine guv".

Oh, didn't spot you had mentioned toe earlier.
I must be confused, cos I thought toe was what they check when they do a "tracking" check.

And how do you check toe with a bit of string?

Bit of string (or, ideally two), alongside the car at axle height, parallel to the centreline of the car.

Having two bits of string (one on either side) means you can make sure they are parallel to each other, and also parallel to the centreline of the car (which is easily found by measuring).

Then measure fron string to wheel rim at the front and back of each wheel, subtract the two numbers and hey presto you have you toe settings, accurate to about 0.5mm (which is a tiny angle).

The first time takes a bit of time to set up (say, half and hour). Every subsequent time takes about 3 minutes.

It's how we do the setup on our race car, and it's how most genuine F3 teams do it.

So if I get this right, you'd set-up your string something like this for toe?

Top View

And something like this for camber?

Side View

Ive only seen it done like this, duno what your supposed to rest it on, guy i saw doing it rested it on the splitter.

Quote from pearcy_2k7 :

Ive only seen it done like this, duno what your supposed to rest it on, guy i saw doing it rested it on the splitter.

OMG, that car has some serious toe-out at the front!

No, wait...

You either support the beam on axel stands in front of/behind the car, or you bolt it onto part of the car (on our Dallara the beams attach to points on the car, whereas on the old Reynard we tended to just tie the string to axle stands and then move the axle stands til it was all parallel and good.

The end result is the same. Bearing in mind the limit of accuracy wasn't with the measurement, but in adjusting the trackrod (it changes quite a lot when you tighten it, and not always consistently), so better than 0.5mm is a bit of a waste. Hence not many people spending money on fancy lasers - except those that want to attract the paying public.

After several hours messing about in the cold it's almost fixed - bodged to hell but everything is a lot lot better than it was before.

Camber is almost perfect as is toe, and all done using nothing but a fancy spirit level and a few spanners.

Now remind me why none of the garages this car has been to have tried to do this for me and charged me £300 labour?

Bad news is she's on cheap tyres on my steelies until I know she wont omnomnom the next set of good tyres she goes on.

Quote from Jakg :

Now remind me why none of the garages this car has been to have tried to do this for me and charged me £300 labour?

Because most garages - even the ones that get good reviews - don't REALLY know what they're doing or why they're doing it.

But you've learnt a good skill there, that will save you money in the future. Consider it a good day!!!!!

Quote from Jakg :

After several hours messing about in the cold it's almost fixed - bodged to hell but everything is a lot lot better than it was before.

Fingers crossed it's all good now

Still can't believe the garages missed it - sounds like it was so bad it was borderline visible to the naked eye.
I'm wondering if suspension problems that severe would be an MOT failure?

By the way, how in hell did it get that bad? A knock?

Maybe some tech with a fancy laser alignment system was shocked to see how bad it was from the factory and "fixed" it.

Quote from Neilser :

I'm wondering if suspension problems that severe would be an MOT failure?

MOT'ed middle of December, no issues except bald tyres! Got new ones put on, and it passed.

Mechanic even got under the car to have a look and said everything was 100% a-ok.

Quote from Neilser :

By the way, how in hell did it get that bad? A knock?

*shrugs*

Since i've had it i've kerbed the front left once at about 10 mph (parallel to kerb and drifted into it, d'oh) and thats... it, tbh.

My Mum had it before me, though, and she could well of done something stupid and just plain not realised (only driver out there that actually scares me when i'm with her

Quote from Jakg :

My Mum had it before me, though, and she could well of done something stupid and just plain not realised (only driver out there that actually scares me when i'm with her

Ah... it's plausible I guess. (One careful lady driver! )

Did you see any damage down there when you were poking about?
You changed the camber on the faulty rear wheel by 3 degrees - that's more than 1 part in 20, so there might just be visible bending somewhere.

For example, if the supports that set the camber (cough, me not suspension expert, not sure of names ) are 20cm apart at the hub, that error is equivalent to one of them having its length out by a whole centimetre. Not pretty. Or its anchor point has been bent (inwards?) by a centimetre... Sounds bloody awful when you put it that way, eh? (Am I talking bollox btw?)

For historical purposes - after adjusting in the snow, and then taking it to a garage who did a 4 wheel adjustment and adjusted it ever so slightly, all is fixed - on the last few thousand miles I did in the Wira there was no abnormal tyre wear on either side.

So you basically sorted all it problems when you don't need it anymore? naice.