I would call this a success A.J. !!
Looks good.
Are you doing the alignment yourself?
I understand that you
- changed all dampers (iirc the Red Konis have 3 settings ?)
- went back to the “old” rear springs
- changed the front springs, but removed the front packer rings which were added to the old springs
when I changed the dampers on my coupe, I reused the rear springs with the packing rings that I found, and I didn’t notice a visual change in the stance of the car , but didn’t made proper measurements at the time
thanks for sharing your findings : I following closely your thread as I still need to refresh he front , and it seems that the result will depend on the exact specs of the new springs 
Yes, doing the alignment myself has been the plan the whole time. I bought those tables a long time ago with the idea of one day being able to do my own alignments. It is only now, through trying to achieve the proper ride height, that I see how important it is to simply roll the car. You can roll the car until the cows come home, but once you raise the car up off the ground (or wheels for any reason) to rest on the table, you’ve just lost any settling that was achieved by the rolling effect. I’ll tell you one thing though, the tables did allow proper access to torque to spec the upper & lower control arms, and the front & rear sway bars.
I guess the first order of business is to square away the camber, then figure out a way to adjust the toe with the car on the ground.
Yes, I am using the red Koni dampers, but they not only have a rebound adjustment but a preload setting as well. The PITA part is that if you ever want to readjust it has to be done off of the car.
Yes again, I went back to the old springs
Yes, it is also correct that the front springs are new. There were four packing rings for each spring (two on top & two on the bottom) from the factory setup, which have been eliminated in the new setup.
Also, the the rear Koni’s that started out with new springs were swapped out for the old springs instead.
Interesting about the rear packing rings that were found on your car. There weren’t any packing rings to be had on this convertible or the coupe.
Most of us just turn the steering full lock and reach around the back of the tire to adjust the tie rod.
IIRC you have two of these alignment tables, they will work fine, just turn the wheels and adjust.
Do you have a camber gauge?
I could easily lift the car and set it back down on the tables, but I thought that the suspension had to be settled in order to adjust the toe? Once I lift the car the suspension will become unsettled.
AJ, I just reach in behind the wheels with 2 wrenches, with the steering wheel set at straight ahead. Can make an adjustment, roll it back then forward, and check again. I normally rely on road test for any final adjustment.
Yes indeed A.J, but that is what the tables are there for. I imagine that there are proper alignment tables, i.e. they dont just pivot but they can move freely in all directions.
The best way would be to drive the car in the tables, they should also have some sort of safety pin to block them in place, so you are 100% sure that the suspension is settled.
An other way is to use two floor tiles on each wheel with grease or salt in between them. It works pretty well.
I was looking at your alignment setup , posed earlier, and wondered about the plates you used
I though they looked like metal plates
White Faced Hardboard sheets, about 3mm thick, left overs from an Ikea furniture…
Plenty of grease in between, worked very well.
this seems easier to find and cut than metal : I’ve got some Ikea leftovers too 
I used some white planks from the same source + plastic floor tiles to get the car level , as the garage floor is lower on the entry side : adding the grease will sort the contraint on the suspension
Ok so, it seems I have setup the suspension both front & rear in the mid laden position before adjusting the toe. According to the ROM the first order of business is setting the toe.
Is there any consequence to checking and setting the castor & camber before setting the toe?
There is no mention of setting the toe in the mid laden position.
My experience in 40+ years of auto service and repair is to adjust caster and camber first. But my personal experience on my XJ-S is that the adjustment have very little interaction. I had my alignment measured, took it home to move the shims around, and took it back for a final measure and printout- toe and steering center had not changed.
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I am so relieved to hear that.
Changing Camber always affects Toe, albeit in the Jaguar not so mush as it’s done via the upper control arms.
Nevertheless, this is the correct order of things:
- Rear Camber (will effect center drive line)
- Front Camber (will affect amount of Caster)
- Caster
- Toe
Not as important as Camber, bur Toe also changes with suspension travel, although engineers try to make this as less as possible (bump steer).
Considering the the front mid laden position is very close to the actual one, the difference would be minimal.
AFAIK because of possible variations in the individual wheels the truest readings for the caster & camber angles, the ideal measurements should be taken at either the hubs or the rotors. What I’d like to do is take the wheels off and use either a protractor or a camber/caster gauge to check the angles. Since the suspension is loaded in the mid laden position, would the readings be invalid if the car is in the air as opposed to being on the ground?
At the front it would be impossible to compress the suspension unless you remove the springs, and the subframe flexes quite a lot with the weight of the car and the force of the spring so the measurements will be very off.
I did mine on the ground and had good results.
The only thing you have to verify is that your wheels are straight and true.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I somewhat confused regarding the “ride height” discussions in this thread. I note a lot of reference to 6" front (to cross member) and 7.5 inches rear (to rear sub frame plate). However, I note that the 1993 supplement CD ROM for the facelift convertible has these numbers as 7" front, and 9.5 rear. The 1994 supplement has no mention of any subsequent change. Two excerpts are as follows:
I’ve played with minor adjustments to my 94 2+2, and currently have them set as follows:
Front 6.5", Rear 8", running 18" penta wheels with P235/45ZR18 98W tires, which are slightly taller ( by 0.2 inches) than the stock 15" wheels (235/60 15" cooper cobras). Also, have the pressures at 35 psi front, 37 rear (higher than the 33 psi I was running the 15" cobras). (Note that I also have a rear spoiler on the rear, which accounts for about 1/4" of drop in the rear.)
I checked my alignment before and after (new 18" wheels, front shocks and springs, rear shocks) and although I added height (due to mostly springs and shocks), the toe and camber remained basically the same. The Jag looks and measures exactly level looking at the undercarriage from behind the front wheels to infront of the rear wheels.
I’ve come to basically conclude that there was a definitive Jaguar change to the ride height introduced
in the facelift cars. Regarding alignment, at least in my case, there is not a perceivable difference in the pre and post change alignment. Regarding ride height, its probably mostly what best appeals to the owner the most, given minor variations. Regarding performance, slightly lower is supposed to improve cornering, but I have not perceived much difference (the new directional 18" tires probably grip better that the old cobra’s and that offsets the increase in center of gravity).
I would really be interested in how other facelift owners had their ride height set, and any perceptions regarding appearance and handling.
I finally got around to getting back to tackling the alignment and surprisingly the camber and castor is at least inside the range of spec, but it needs a bit of tweaking. In the mid laden position
Camber came in at 0.7 right front and 0.8 left front - the spec range is -0.1 to -0.9 degrees, so that puts me at the upper, or more negative part of the range. I tried adding a 1/32” shim to the front right and it brought it down a degree positive so I removed it to keep as much negative camber as possible. What really surprised me was that after lifting the car off the ground, still in it’s mid laden position, the camber readings only changed a few 10ths of a degree.
After doing a caster sweep the right front came in at 3.2 degrees and the left front came in at 2.2 degrees. The range is +2.0 to +6.0, so without doing anything I’m already in the ballpark, but my target is 5.0 degrees positive caster.
Be it in the archives or anywhere else that I’ve searched, there isn’t anything that I could find that asked about positive or negative caster movement. All I’ve read are numbers of people saying the same thing “move the shims backwards or forwards.”I’d like to avoid guessing about which way to move the shims in order to achieve positive caster. Can someone say which direction moves the caster from negative to positive territory?
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