Camber angle measurement tool

[steve-v8s]

Further to my previous thread about suspension set-up, does any body have experience of the Camber angle measurement tools available from the catalogue sellers. The Deamon Tweeks catalogue shows a unit that appears to be a number of sprit levels and states 0 .25 degree accuracy. I guess they should be regarded as “ for indication only” but if you have knowledge I would be grateful of any feedback before spending my money. How do you use them ? is it a case of sticking the fixing magnet to the hub centre ?

I know you will all say go to a dealer and have it set up, but I like to understand what I want first otherwise, in my experience you get something slightly different to what you wanted for slightly more money than you expected.

[Guillotine]

bubble type is sufficient £80-100.

'course if you were cagey...

you could by one, drill and tap some bolts thru at the 15" or 16" (depending on wheels & tyres, you may have to do this anyway to get an accurate rim reading) points take it along to a "friendly" specialist and ask them to check your camber. 2mins and probably won't charge. then with your exactly known camber setting done by the VERY expensive kit - put your on and "zero it to the setting giving, adjusting the screws if necessary.

BTW - most people use the bubble type anyway.

BTW - i did this with Peninsula...top guys!

>> Edited by Guillotine on Saturday 26th June 16:29

[dnb]

I "get by" on my Impreza using a decent spirit level, vernier calipers, a large tri-square and a reel of masking tape...

Maybe an £80 camber gauge would be useful to me, as there is no-one in easy reach of where I live to set these things up.

[steve-v8s]

OK, so I will buy one form DTweeks and see how I get on. Sort of agree about Peninsular, but they are a good two hours from me. They do however have good coffee.

[joospeed]

Why on earth do you need to be more accurate that 0.25degs? most people can't tell wen the cars is 1deg out .. lol .. I got by for ages using a camber gauge and tracking gauge I made myself, the only reason I splashed out a grand on equipment was cos it didn't look very professional .. my new stuff does exactly the same job but if you don't have the latest stuff people don't take you seriously .. ! doh!.

Make your own camber gauge out of chipboard, a bicycle spoke pivoting on a washer and graduated scale off a protractor from WH Smith .. total cost about a quid, accurate to 0.25 degs if you make it accurately and it'll be just fine and put the 80 quid towards a sprint entry

[Guillotine]

[dnb]

How would you make a tracking gauge then?

I can get by with my DIY camber gauge...

[Guillotine]

they're cheap.

two slidey discs that you roll your car over. £12ish

[joospeed]

all you need is a length of steel, weld a bracket on one end with a rod to touch the wheel rim, on the other end do the same but with a threaded rod you can wind in and out .. offer it up to the wheel rim at the rear, move the adjustable rod to touch the rim .. move whole thing to front of wheel, then measure the gap .. that's the toe-in! You measure direcly nd can work the angle out witha bit of basic trig easy peasy

i used mine for two years, my 650 pounds worth of lazer aligner does exactly the same thing just looks better so teh customers like it

[Guillotine]

joospeed,didn't you have a job on blue peter?


or was it HOW!

[joospeed]

lol yup maybe you know me by my "stage name" .. John Noakes

[Guillotine]

[GreenV8S]

Mine is accurate to 0.05 degrees, cost £5 and was knocked up in ten minutes from a couple of steel rulers and a plumb weight. It only took so long to make because I had to go down the shops to buy the second ruler. Toe-in gauge and corner weights are similar, don't think I spent more than about £25 in total. Don't really see the point spending hundreds of pounds on 'professional' measuring equipment unless you're in a business where time is money, this stuff isn't exactly rocket science!

[monaco]

GreenV8S

How do you do the corner weights then ??? what are you using ?

Got everything else sorted but haven't considered trying corner weighting myself.

[GreenV8S]

I use a set of common or garden bathroom scales. The scales measure up to about 100 Kgs, so it won't take the whole weight of one corner. To get round this I made up a stepped beam from two short pieces of 2 by 4 screwed together with an overlap. I drive the car onto the low end, stop when the wheel buts against the 2" step in the middle, the scales go under the high end. This gives me just the right leverage to measure the weight of one corner using the full range of the scales. I actually made two of the ramps so I put a brick under one ramp and the scales on the other, swap the scales and the brick over to measure the other corner, then move the whole lot to the other end of the car to measure the other two corners. The whole process takes half an hour or so including making a level surface to work on. Obviously there are several sources of error that need to be eliminated but with these sorted out it is repeatable to within a few Kgs.

[Guillotine]

RIGHT!

i MADE my first Griff out of...



a roller skate
4 washing machine motors (arranged in a V)
old arm chairs (leather)
old hoover pipes (act induction)
frying pan (so mark adams could chip it)
an old bang and olfson hi fi for (leven) ally bits!!

and if you tell the tuscan owners of today that...

THEY WON'T BELIEVE YOU!


sorry guys, monday morning, and i have to decorate



>> Edited by Guillotine on Monday 28th June 10:37