Camber Adjustment - Reason?

My front camber is unsatisfactory. I understand the measurement and adjustment - but I have to ask myself ‘why is this necessary?’.

Ball joints and bearings seem fine, bushings are old (possibly original) but have no slop, there has been no accident (have seen the bonnet in bare metal and the engine frame is almost certainly original) and nothing appears to be bent or broken.

The numbers are: left (d/s) +.65° and right (p/s) -.21°

Is it normal for the camber to get that far off w/o there being something wrong somewhere?

Symptoms that I attribute to that set-up are -

Drifts very slightly left at speed
Pulls slightly left on braking
Pulls decidedly left on hard braking
Pulls dangerously left when breaking in the rain.

I can adjust it and I expect almost anything that gets them the same will be an improvement - but I don’t want to blindly adjust if there is something that needs fixing.

I am reluctant to replace what seem to be good old bushings with something new that may fail in use.

Am I just looking for trouble? Should I just do the shims and drive on?

Camber spec is +0.25 degrees +/- 0.5 degrees so you are within tolerances, Geo, though it might explain the slight drift at speed. I suspect the braking issue is an air bubble in the right side front caliber.

Fundamentals: get you basic measurents close to the same, l to r, then see if that cures the issue.

Caster, too, since that is what affects the self-centering effect.

Another mix on specs for your car. For original Bias ply tires, positive camber was specified. Most of the shop manuals just carry on with earlier specs. When radials were introduced, the camber spec changed to negative. I have found that running radials with 1/2- works best. This will not with those specs cause you to pull to one side when braking. This is usually caused by castor being off. Most likely the side that it pulls toward has less castor than the other side. This is assuming brake calipers, hoses and pads are OK. Dial in as much negative castor as will allow. The limit is when the A arm starts rubbing the front of the shock. Make sure both sides are equal and then set toe. I usually use 1/16" or 6 minutes toe in.

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Geo, My bet is you have a sticky piston in the right caliper or bad brake hose. I will watch this space as many know more than I. Tom

Further thoughts: if you look at the car from the rear, the left front tire is positive camber which means it is leaning to the left from vertical. The right side is negative which means it is leaning to the left from vertical. This is why you are drifting to the left slightly. If pulling to one side is caused by alignment issues, it is usually castor as mentioned. While you are at it, might as well check the rear and adjust accordingly. 3/4- is the spec. The shims are good for 1/4 degree each. Remove to go towards negative, add to go in a positive direction.

Yes, I initially suspected the brakes but replacing the pads made no difference and the pistons all moved in very nicely.

I was just about to rebuild the calipers anyway when I noticed the odd camber and since that needs to be put right I thought I might as well do alignment first and possibly resolve the left-leaning tendencies of my steering.

Thanks for all the suggestions & info.

Jerry Mouton always said, “get as much negative camber as you can”

needs to be the same on each side

Quite easy to do your own alignment on an E…but the bonnet needs to be off

I have never done any rear alignment

…which will mean the alignment will not be accurate.

Bonnet-on alignments are entirely doable.

Yeah cars pull in the direction the tires are leaning. Also some of the pull in your car may actually be concealed by the crown in the road. They used to deliberately set camber to offset the crown but I understand alignment shops don’t do that anymore. One of the things that has a big effect on camber on E Types is ride height. Even small changes have big effects. The lower the car the greater the negative camber. Most E Types lean to the drivers side (torsion bar and springs sag more on left over the years because usually only the driver is in the car) which can give you a distorted picture of actual camber. Your car’s specs are the opposite of what you usually find. (Maybe they were set this way - see settings for crown above?) Jaguar want’s you to set at mid-laden position for this reason. In other words measuring camber at your actual ride height is not particularly accurate.
I’d really like to see a typical alignment shop do an E Type. I wonder how many of the techs actually know how to do it. Few I suspect.
Need to change? Excess camber causes tire wear, but probably yours isn’t bad enough to do that, but +.65 is a lot. Radials like negative camber - it makes them corner faster. Is that important? Like the other writers here I doubt if your camber has anything to do with your braking issues.

Dick - More negative castor is interesting. Jaguar calls for 2.5 degrees positive. With negative castor don’t you lose self centering and straight line stability?

Got a brain fade on terminology. I mentioned moving the A arm back until just before it hits the shock. I just called positive castor instead of negative.

My somewhat crude device for measuring camber & castor lacks precision but was accurate enough to tell me I do need to make adjustments:

The front wheels lean like a Bay Area Democrat.

So I took the splash shields off and have soaked all the relevant fittings with PBlaster:

Shock is still mounted as I have to put the road wheels and battery back on and drive enough to re-settle the suspension.

I ordered one of these from JEGS - hopefully it will enable me to get valid data - seems simple enough:

Not cheap - but really not much more than having a local shop tell me the numbers.

I have an older version of one of these. Works okay.

Yes, I looked at that one but was unsure how it would work with a wire wheel fitted or if one of their adapters would be needed.

https://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/81679/10002/-1

Good point! I have three cars with wire wheels. Two of them–Alfa with Borrani wires and Corvair with Kelsey-Hayes wires–have steel knock-offs with flat faces to which the magnet attaches firmly. The third (S1 XJ6) has bolt-on Daytons. I have to remove the spinners to attach the magnet, but of course they aren’t functional anyway.

But regarding your concern…I happen to be using real Jaguar winged knock-offs as my fake spinners–just like you would have. I just checked mine and they are not magnetic, I presume brass. They are very old (bought in the 1980s; have the correct Jaguar script). So in your application it won’t work with the magnetic attachment without a custom-made adapter–no good! I don’t know if the later repro knock-offs are steel, in which case they would stick. But still, the outer surface is rounded, which could introduce an error. So I shouldn’t have mentioned it in the first place. :slight_smile:

Dad made two modified brass spinners, such that a magnetic tool could be stuck to them,… someones for the postage.

Here is what I made up. Pretty much a crude version of what you just purchased. The threaded rod allows for all adjustments needed to fine tune it.
One thing to factor in is that our rims (mine at least) have a little “wobble” (1 of themalmost 1/8") so I ended up marking the worst spots and placing the tool somewhere in between them.
For alignment drop a plumb bob from the front and rear of the threaded rod on each tire, place some tape on the floor so you can mark where it lands and measure…
Car must be level .

Marco


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Someone on this list made one of these and passed it along years ago. I made this one out of oak, a hard stable wood. The black string with plumb bob points to a scale. I added the digital level for comfirmation.

Just place the edges against the rim of the wheel and you are in business. Wait for the string to stop swinging and read the results.

I did check and the edge of the wheels with a dial indicator and the Daytons have essentially zero run out.

I’m also lucky to have a really level garage floor.

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The Longacre tool is used with the hub caps off the car. If you buy the right one it has a magnet, or magnets on the later ones, that holds it to the hub. It also does castor. Very simple to use - not affected by wobbly wire wheels

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