S2 Wheel alignment

[maigret]

I got new tyres today and a wheel alignment.

The results are that the Camber of the front wheels is 1.5 deg positive whereas should be 0.5 deg negative. There appears to be no adjustment though. Any suggestions? Are there adjustable wishbones available?

[lotusguy]

maigret said:

I got new tyres today and a wheel alignment. The results are that the Camber of the front wheels is 1.5 deg positive whereas should be 0.5 deg negative. There appears to be no adjustment though. Any suggestions? Are there adjustable wishbones available?

Hi,

You're correct, the camber is not adjustable, nor are there any off the shelf adjustable links (FYI, the car has upper wishbone, but substitutes a lower link for an actual wishbone). Adjustable links made their appearance with the S4 model and will not fit an earlier car.

If you're off by that much, it indicates that something(s) in the suspension is out of whack, perhaps bent links, worn upper balljoints or fatigued bushings. Did you do a check with the old tires? What settings did you have before? Have you changed tire size/profile? Was the car in any sort of collision in it's lifetime?

Unfortunately, the only way to restore the original settings is to find and replace those components which are out of spec. Hope this helps. Happy Motoring!... Jim'85TE

>> Edited by lotusguy on Wednesday 11th February 14:45

[scoots]

I used to have a rally car with the same type of front suspension as the S2, with no adjustment for anything other than toe.

There are two ways of solving your problem that I have done in the past, but both would require someone with a bit of engineering nous (and knowledge of trigonometry) to effect them.

1. Bend the upright with the stub axle on it. This sounds frightening, but it very effective. I made an 'L' shaped jig to do this on my old car that passed through the two holes for the ball joints and had the lower part of the 'L' beaneath and more-or-less parallel to the axle stub, and the same length. I measured the distance from the tip of the 'L' to the tip of the axle stub. Having already calculated what change in this distance I required to achieve the desired settings, I put it in the press and bent it until it was where I wanted it. This method is only good for adjusting camber.

2. The second method is good for castor and camber, but I only ever used it for castor. I made new suspension bushes for the upper arms with off-set holes. The offset in one or both bushes moved the tip of the arm (where the ball joint attaches) forward or backward to adjust the castor angle. This is a pretty bold adjustment, and there is no way of fine adjusting it, but if your castor angle was out miles, it was a real help.

I hope that that is not too confusing.

cheers,

Ian.....

[maigret]

The tyres are the same as the old ones but not original factory sizes (now 225/50 R15). I hadn't had the alignment checked previous.

I have replaced the upper ball joints and the tyre place said there was nothing obviously amiss.


The previous owner replaced the springs as he said the owner before him had put very hard springs on it and he claimed to have put it back to the original spec.

There does not seem to be any accident damage and I would have thought it unusual for the error to be identical both sides.

I might have a look at the suggestions you made Ian. I have built a couple of cars and do all my own maintenance so I could tackle those options. I just hoped there might be an off the shelf option available to save me a bit of work.

Thanks for the help chaps.

Graeme