Need a little help figuring something out

[SSLance]

So with everything shock related mocked up and in place except for the shock reservoirs, this is what I've been working on this week

I've ordered a pair of these



http://www.sealsit.com/grommet_split.asp

And once they get here I'll prepare myself mentally to cut two 3" diameter holes in my trunk floor up near the center of the shelf above the rear axle. The reservoir lines will leave the top of the shock mounts, wrap around the old coil spring spuds on the frame and head to the center where they'll go up through the floor of the trunk and the reservoirs will be mounted pointed back out to the outside of each respective side. Their placement will allow me to open the trunk and reach the adjustment knobs on each reservoir very easily plus give a secure and safe place to mount them out of the way. Hopefully the grommets provide a good clean safe way to seal the holes back up again.

The front shock reservoirs will just be mounted somewhere near the top of the front shocks on the inner fenderwell so all three adjustment knobs up there will be easy to access as well.

I've been working on the alignment settings with the new front lower control arms. I ordered the Joes Racing caster camber gauge and started checking it out Tuesday night. I had to remove my dust caps, the cotter pin and wheel bearing nuts, take the bearing washer out and put the nut back on the spindle to have enough thread to thread the tool onto the spindle. Once there I checked all of the settings.

I knew my steering wheel was centered before so I centered it again and put several pieces of masking tape on the top of my steering column and also on the steering wheel itself then made a mark going across both to give me a reference mark showing when the steering wheel is centered.

To check caster, you have to know when your front wheels are turned 20 degrees left or right. If you notice on the gauge...





On the outside of it there are two edges that are pointed 20 degrees toward the inside. With the gauge on the drivers side front wheel, I turned the steering wheel to the left until the level I put on that end of the gauge was parallel with the body of the car, representing a 20 degree turn to the left. Once I was sure it was parallel, I put a mark on the steering wheel masking tape even with the mark on the column, noting a 20 degree turn to the left. Then I repeated that procedure for the passenger side.

To check Caster, what you do is turn the driver's side wheel 20 degrees to the left, level the bubble on the end of the gauge, then adjust the thumbscrew on the center part of the gauge to set the caster bubble to zero. Then turn the steering wheel all the way to 20 degrees to the right (line up the other mark on the masking tape) and boom...read your caster number on the bubble level. Easy Peasy...

To do the passenger side just reverse the above procedure.

Reading Camber settings is even easier. Level the gauge on the respective spindle and read the bubble on the level.

Now...and this is the part where I can't seem to get it through my thick head how to do this stuff right the first time.

It is CRUCIAL to have the car sitting at ride height, on a square and level floor before starting to read or mess with these adjustments.

When I first put the gauge on a spindle, I was so excited about how easy it was to use, I just started measuring, making notes and then went right into making adjustments pulling out shims, measuring, and repeating all while checking for tie rod clearance at the frame at full compression (my main interference point). I had my two post lift arms set under the frame, 10.5" of wood stacked under the rear tires and my car ramps and two double laminated pieces of plywood under the front tires at 10.5" tall as well. Coilover springs on the rear were set to ride height, driver side front shock was installed with no spring, no passenger side shock was installed. After messing with it quite a bit tweaking the driver side caster and camber getting it just so where I thought it was best, I went to the passenger side and it was all out of whack.

I then realized what was going on. My lift arms are not exactly level with one another, so as I was raising and lowering the frame of the car with the lift with no springs in the front, essentially the passenger side of the frame was about a 1/2-3/4" lower than the driver side. This WILL mess your readings up!! Not only that, the weight of the engine forces the front of the frame to flex down 1/2-3/4" when the frame is lifted behind the front tires...also detrimental to getting accurate measurements of front geometry.

So, I punted for the night and came up with a new plan of attack.

Last night I first I installed the passenger side shock (no springs) to match the driver side. I then set the rear tires on the floor sitting on one flat 2x6 raising them 1.5" up off of the floor. I set the front tires on the two pieces of 3/4" laminate plywood on the floor, basically setting all tires 1.5" up off of the floor. I then put my floor jack under the front crossmember and lowered the car off of the lift arms and got them out of the way. I discovered that my jack would not go low enough to drop the front of the car to full compression (necessary for setting bump steer) so I put another 2x6 under all four tires raising them all to 3" off the floor and that gave my jack the clearance it needed. Basically this let me set the rear coilovers to exactly the desired ride height and to use the floor jack to raise or lower the front suspension with the complete weight of the car, engine, frame body etc on the jack\frame just like it would be if there were springs on the shocks.

I then only used the jack to move the front of the car up and down as needed and remeasured all of my current alignment settings on both front wheels. Of course, the adjustments I made the night before completely screwed the Drivers side up due to readings being off because the body of the car was canted to the passenger side and the frame was drooping 1/2-3/4s" under the weight of the engine.

What I also found was with the weight on the frame in this correct state, I could get another 1/2" of compression travel before the bump stops settled and the tie rod hit the frame.

#startover

I then quit for the night knowing that the next time in the shop the car is all jigged up ready to go and all I have to do is start taking readings again, making adjustments and taking readings once again. It should go pretty fast now, it really doesn't take that long to loosen the UCA nuts, slip a few shims in or out tighten back down and check again and I have a pretty good idea now of what needs to be changed to get things where we want them for maximum front tire contact in all scenarios.

Lesson here, car HAS to be in static ride height condition in order for the tools and procedures to work properly...live it, learn it...

And that's where I'm at right now. Hopefully tonight I'll get a real good set of adjustments made to the camber, caster, bump steer and toe and get the front end locked down. Then it'll just be a matter of installing the front springs, mounting the reservoirs, nut and bolting everything and a test drive to start tuning the shocks.