Negative camber

[lmandb]

Hi, Just replaced the ball joints, bushings and removed one coil from the springs. Assembled everything back together and now I have what seems like excessive negative camber. There are no shims on the lower a-arm bolts so how do I get it back to specs? Any Ideas? What could I have done tp create this problem? Can't find this on the forum, anyone had this problem....

[redcars]

I just did the same thing with my 82 spider and ended up with a little positive camber. There is a little play with the bolts for the ball joints. You could try loosing them and moving the bottom in and the top out to help as much as possible. Other than that I don't know what could have caused your problem.

[kmead]

Some negative camber is fine, excessive camber is a problem.

Not to be insulting or cast aspersions, positive camber is when the top of the tire is further out than the bottom of the tire and negative is the opposite (top in, bottom out).

A half degree is an acceptable amount for a street driven car.

One can chase some of it out by loosening the ball joint bolts to the A arms and move the upper one out and the lower one in. If you still can't get to where you could redrill the holes in the ball joints to move the ball joints relative to the end of the A arm, the same could be done with the a arms (which I would not want to do).

If your car is suffering from rust in the shock/spring mount area the upper arm can begin to move inward creating negative camber. The constant pounding of bumps and so on can make the tower area bend in towards the engine, it doesn't take much to cause this.

[mdrburchette]

I had the same problem when I replaced the bushings and ball joints on my 71 but it wasn't too excessive so I'm leaving it alone. On my 78 Lemons racer, it was so bad my husband took the lower control arm, cut it and rewelded back together to create less camber. That's going a bit extreme, I know.

[lmandb]

I think I just found some of the problem. I appears that there are flat washers on the studs that hold the A-arm to the frame. The drivers side has 2 washers on each bolt, the pass side has one on each bolt, this is where the shims go to adjust the alignment. Is there any problem with removing these flat washers to pull the A-arm in to reduce the negative camber? I think I will remove them and see where it puts the adjustment.

[v6spider]

- .5° camber to -1° is ideal...
Rob

[kmead]

I think I just found some of the problem. I appears that there are flat washers on the studs that hold the A-arm to the frame. The drivers side has 2 washers on each bolt, the pass side has one on each bolt, this is where the shims go to adjust the alignment. Is there any problem with removing these flat washers to pull the A-arm in to reduce the negative camber? I think I will remove them and see where it puts the adjustment.

Having at least one washer in the is likely neccessary.

Also keep in mind that the lower arm adjustments are also how caster is adjusted on theses cars.

[lmandb]

Thanks for all the info. Removing the washers on the pass side brought the wheel to 0 degrees, with an alignment for the caster (adding a shim or two) it will most certainly push it out to -1 camber. The drivers side is well within limits. Also I noticed in the manual it shows shims in the diagram on the center cross member where it bolts to the frame rails. I don't have any there but it sure could change the basic settings if you were not aware of that possibility. I will post the results after I get it aligned. Thanks much...

[lmandb]

Took the Fiat in for the alignment. Came right into specs. The washers that were on the studs had to be from the factory, they had millimeter markings on them. Also it appears you can spread the frame rails by putting shims in the top cross member bolt. Although my Fiat did not have any the factory manual shows them in the schematics. Thanks for your responses. It took awhile but got it figured out.