Camber angle

[Iain21]

Hi all,

I've been adjusting the camber on the RH wheel of my Toyota Carina E today (with the help of a dremel!) to solve a pulling & tyre wear problem. It's now roughly at the right angle as compared with LH side, but I need to take it somewhere nice and flat and level and measure again (spirit-level-on-the-wheel method).

Anyway, I thought I'd check the spec in the Haynes manual, and it states for camber:

-20 ± 45'

Does anyone know what the -20 represents? It's obviously negative camber, but 20???

45' is presumably minutes of a degree. The other angles in the spec have ° after them, so I'm guessing the -20 is nothing to do with an actual angle, but rather a measurement..? But it doesn't say mm or anything...

Hmm, bit lost! Anyone have any idea?

[Megaflow]

It's minutes. The factory setting will be -20 minutes +/-45 minutes.

[E-bmw]

^^^^ Wot 'e said.

[Iain21]

Okay, thanks both. Think will need to check again on a level surface, as I was measuring around 1.3° negative camber on the "good" wheel - ie no abnormal/uneven tyre wear. I would get it measured properly at a garage, but the car is - and I say this reluctantly as I've owned and respected it for more than a decade - coming to it's EOL, and any € spent on it needs to be carefully considered...

[E-bmw]

As I suspect you are now finding out, you REALLY shouldn't have messed with it without doing all measurements repeatedly with settling in between on anything other than perfect level ground, with perfect suspension and tyre pressures/tread wear etc before starting to move/adjust anything.

Without this you are not going to end up where you want it.

I would doubt camber alone would be the cause of the original problem anyway?

[Iain21]

Well, it's easily adjustable back to where it was in any case - I elongated a bolt hole in the strut to allow for more negative camber only, so if it's just pushed back the other way as far as it will go, I'm back to how it was.

Need to adjust the camber more though I think, as now not pulling nearly as much as it did, and then re-adjust the tracking; but will do this once it's got new tyres on tomorrow. And I'll be somewhere that I can check the camber more accurately.

As for camber being the source of the problem (steering pulling to right, wear on outside edge of right tyre - no abnormal wear on any other tyre), I've ruled out tracking (would be wear on both front tyres?), castor (not normally abnormal tyre wear, but does pull to one side?), and steering axis inclination (because it just confuses me). Both front tyres have been previously replaced, problem remained, so not the tyres causing the problem.

Camber, I think, causes both pull and edge tyre wear? So that's what I'm going with. And the pull is almost gone, so...

[E-bmw]

If the camber adjustment makes the pulling go, but when you get it on level ground the angles are not the same, what are you going to do?

It is more likely that something else is "out of kilter" in some area & you MAY have found a way of counteracting it.

Then you will set up the tracking & it will go out again & you are just chasing the error.

You really need to get it diagnosed properly first time.

[Matt Seabrook]

Adjusting the camber like you are could be masking a caster or tyre issue. I understand that on an old car you don't want to spend big money but a lot of places will do a free alignment check. You could do with finding someone with a computerised alignment system in your area and getting it checked out. That would be a good start. If they also have a GSP9700 Hunter wheel balancer that will tell you if it's a tyre issue. The suck it and see method could give unexpected results.

[Mr2Mike]

Matt Seabrook said:

Adjusting the camber like you are could be masking a caster or tyre issue.

And it will certainly be changing the tracking as well. Badly mismatched camber angles (if they really are) on a suspension system with no camber adjustment means something is bent, and you need to find out what it is before randomly attacking parts with a dremel.