4 Wheel Alignment & Camber

[vr-oom]

Hi Guys, does anyone know of anywhere in Suffolk that can do 4 wheel alignment and camber check on my lowered VW Corrado, the tyres are in the arches and my local place in Ipswich said they can't do it for this reason?

Cheers James

[browny,s blower]

is it on big wheels if so pop some 15inch back on to set it up

[boosty]

A laser pointer, a bit of wood, some chalk and a tape measure are all you need to do alignment yourself. For camber add a bit of string and two nails.

If you've got a 25 quid to spend then a digital inclinometer against the brake disk is far better than a traditional camber gauge. Now that I have a pair of them I can get my camber checks done in about 2 minutes although that may stretch to 5 minutes if I need to make adjustments...

[apguy]

Are the wheel rims inside the arches as well?

There are 2 types of 4 wheel alignment clamps, ones that clamp the outside of the tyre and the other type clamps the wheel rim. I'm guessing your usual place has the tyre mount method and can't fix the clamp if your tyres are in the arches.

<Warning, blatant plug>
We have an HPA Pro-Align, wireless 4 wheel alignment that uses the rim clamp method if this is suitable. Based in Bury St Edmunds, so a 0.5 hour jog away. Bury Accident Repair Centre on 01284 768200.
</blatant plug>

[markCSC]

Andrew

How do you go about setting up alignment on lowered cars? If the car has been lowered the standard settings will be wrong, yes?
Also how much does it cost. Need my doing as well.

Thanks

Mark

[apguy]

markCSC said:

Andrew
How do you go about setting up alignment on lowered cars? If the car has been lowered the standard settings will be wrong, yes?
Also how much does it cost. Need my doing as well.

Hi Mark,

Reverting to the standard setting won't be wrong, but the difficulty lies in how to get back it back into standard tolerances.

When a car has been lowered the front wishbones and rear trailing arms (or wishbones)are no longer parallel to the ground and are now pointing upwards. This introduces negative camber on the front and rear and also kicks out the toe on the front (due to the castor angle)
Obviously toe on the front is easy to get back in (adjust trackrod ends) and is set to factory standard unless there is particular handling trait to dial out.
Castor hasn't changed so that leaves camber.

Camber is a pain depending upon the vehicle concerned. If there is no adjustable item on the front and rear then we have some options. Adjustable top mounts for the front gives us adjustment, although the cost of these can vary from £40 to £400 a set. The rear is a matter of driving style and personal preference, a standard road car normally has 0deg of camber at the rear. In our experience a drop of less than 30mm normally results in <1deg of negative camber at the rear. For road use this is acceptable (although tyre wear is accelerated). Otherwise we can use packing washers to adjust the hub angle, or even elongate the rear subframe/chassis mounts to provide some adjustment on the wishbone/trailing arm.

However on some vehicles there are eccentric cams on the rear wishbones bolts that enable adjustment (after being freed up from the rust that be-sets them). VW and Honda are 2 companies that fit eccentric cams on rear wishbones. (I haven't seen a Corrado for a long while, so cannot guarantee that they exist on that generation)

[vr-oom]

Thanks Andrew, I'll give you a call and pop over and get the tracking checked, you guys busy Friday? The main concern I have is the front camber, its well over the standard -1.2 degrees, if it can be pulled back some then that would make me very happe.

James

[apguy]

vr-oom said:

Thanks Andrew, I'll give you a call and pop over and get the tracking checked, you guys busy Friday? The main concern I have is the front camber, its well over the standard -1.2 degrees, if it can be pulled back some then that would make me very happe.

James

Hi James,

Whilst I own the place, I don't actually work there (at least not now). But I have a very nice manager called Steve who will be able to help. He'll need to see the car so we can figure out what kind of adjustment you have available. I deliberately run -2.2 degs front and -1 deg rear on my race car, but you wouldn't want that on a road car Call ahead of time as we need to make sure a ramp is free otherwise you could be in for a long wait.

[bigtalljim]

There is a place right next to Norwich Airport called Autotest 01603 410834 post code for sat nav NR6 6HG.
They did my TVR S and got it spot on. Only cost 120 quid and transformed the handling, printed out a pretty picture for me to understand too!

Give them a ring

[bigtalljim]

oops didnt read the whole thread and missed the offer to do work. Mind you if you get stuck try the number I gave above.

Good luck getting it sorted.