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three counties
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Post by three counties »

Hi all, could anyone give me the correct information,for the setting up the upper control arms please, regarding the caster, camber and toe in settings, I've found some one with the right equipment to do it,, it's for my 68 charger,383, have already changed the upper and lower ball joints, the control arms are stock, have got all the parts now, bushes are Moog, rubber, will be doing the job over the winter, thanks
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DougieJ
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Post by DougieJ »

Some excellent advice I received from Dave999 here:

[quote=Dave999 post_id=632555 time=1562142584 user_id=364]

There are also some other great posts from Dave on this subject but I'm away and don't have access to my list of links for very handy stuff on the board.
three counties
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Post by three counties »

Thanks, hopefully Dave will see this 👍
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morgan
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Re: Information

Post by morgan »

I dont know if he is still doing it but Roger from (ex?) Monkfish did mine - really knows his stuff.
The problem you will have is that they were never designed to give enough something-or-other (castor ? Camber ? Dont remember which). The adjustment is all carried out on some egg shaped cams on the bolts - which apparently dont move enough.
I ended up doing tubular UCAs which adjust every which way - depending how serious you are it might be worth looking into ?

Anyway. Find Roger !
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Dave999
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Post by Dave999 »

All i can tell you is what i learnt with mine when i bodged it. :)

for a car with power steering you will probably want a bit of weight to it, i.e it no longer needs to be set up as per the book so that a frail old grandmother can park it at walmart.

you also in theory do not need to set each side differently to cater for the camber on the road, if most of your driving is city streets and motorway.
in the past with a mainly A road country 1950s and 1960s UK, most driving was done on an A or B road that had some significant camber to each side to help with drainage. so the need to have it pull ever so slightly to the right in order to maintain a hands off the wheel straight line on that kind of road is massively reduced.

you will find that the guy who built one side of your car seemed to be using a tape measure that was inaccurate in comparison to his colleague on the other. there is no guarantee that the top mounts on 1 side are mm accurately aligned with the top arm mounts on the other. this means a compromise, 1 side can be adjusted to a position unachievable on the other side in respect to castor.


Power steering set up at home

first set the car to standard ride height...life will be some much easier if it is. use drop spindles if you want a low car. having the suspension on the bump stops is no good.

set wheel to centre
drive car back and forth no hands until you can repeatedly cover exactly the same ground. i.e find dead ahead

get underneath and check where the inner ends of the track rods are, the gap between inner joint and the chassis should be the same each side.
if its not, we need to worry about other things. but it should, by eye, be very very similar. but if its not that needs fixing first
check steering wheel poisition on splines, check pot coupling position onto steering box, check track rod lengths side- side. if one is massively longer then you have to correct it first check visible thread on each joint
but we'll assume its ok

put the car down and bounce it twice or thrice, foot on bumper
then try for max castor on both sides
wind the front bolt of the upper arm adjusters so the fat side of the washer faces the centre of the car, basically wind it round so fat bit points as much as possible at the motor... this pushes the front mount of the upper arm outwards and tends to swing the balljoint back towards the rear slightly
wind the rear one on each arm so the fat side of the washer is pointing outwards. this pulls the back mount of the upper arm Inwards which also swings the balljoint to the rear slightly. it pays to have this all greased up, and you can only do this stuff with the car on its wheels.
if you clamp any of the bushes in the suspension tight when the car is jacked up you will ruin the bush. everything is only done up tight at ride height otherwise it it totally flexed past the point of no return when the car is at rest on its wheels. new bushes can be destroyed in literally seconds
upper and lower only done up tight at ride height

the aim here is to have the top ball joint move back towards the rear of the car. with the top balljoint further back than the bottom joint, if you were to rest a long ruler on the taper of the upper joint and against the taper of the lower joint it would hit the floor in front of the patch of tyre that is touching the road i.e you have castor and that wheel will always self align with going straight. you have achieved the same as the offset pivot on a shopping trolley wheel. or the angled back head stock on a bike. a bike frame is always swept back at the head stock, the tube its never vertical when viewed from the side, and that set up is what we want for the stub axle

trouble is you will have more on 1 side than the other, because the car was built by a chap on his 96th joint of the day.
now if you had all the gear you would go through a castor set up and match them side to side, the more positive castor you have the heavier the steering becomes..... but you don't have all the gear to check castor easily.

the only bodge you can do at home is really to leverage the relationship between castor and the camber of the wheel. both are adjusted with the adjusters at the upper arm.

so you cheat and use camber as an indicator
roll car back and forth again.
look from the front
you will probably note that the wheels look wonky and the car looks a bit duck toed with the top if the wheels sticking out further than the bottom when viewed from the front
bounce it a few times again
if roll it back and forth

use spirit level, plumb line or both to adjust the rear upper arm adjuster until you get both wheels exactly upright. this reduces your castor but slowly sets you up with neutral camber. if you can't get it. the front adjuster needs some adjustment back from its extreme setting as well. same angle of twist to adjuster both sides for the front one. take the rears back to maximum, fat side of washer OUTwards, and approach neutral camber again.
repeat until bored or happy.

the assumption here is that with camber set the same on both sides, that castor for both will be in spitting distance of the same... there is a chance it wont be but its better than nothing.

now i tend to add an additional but exactly the same fraction of a turn so that i get a very small negative camber i.e top of wheel in a tiny bit more than the bottom i'm talking 1 mm or so...but given the bodgey way i do this its unlikely to be that useful.

put car on its wheels and do the top mount bolts, all 4 up really tight.

i once did this adjustment with my hubs resting on axle stands which were resting on turntables but it wasn't very successful and is a recipe for injury or death
mine is an A body so access to adjusters is compromised. no access from inside the engine bay and i don't have Z shaped arms 2 elbows and a wrist in each arm would be perfect

next all that messing about will have buggered up the tracking some what

so run the car back and forth no hands until, you are sure the steering is dead ahead, if the wheel is not we will worry about that later
underneath again and check the distance between the inner track rod ball joint and the chassis. again should be the same each side. i just use ring spanner or my long nose pliers in the gap

put car down

bounce it

put a sewing pin in the rear of each tyre in the middle row of the middle tread, a repeatable place, roll car back so that you can see pin 1 in 1 tyre and pin 2 in the opposite side unhindered by bits of chassis.
tie white cotton thread on 1 side and run it across to the other pin. pull taught and mark the thread where it bends over the other pin with a black pen.

roll up cotton
roll car forward to get the pins at the slightly down facing but same angle forward
put cotton back and see where the mark is
you want the mark to be about 4 mm past the pin i.e front of tyre 4mm closer than rear you are measuring with the whole wheel radius in the mix, 4 mm sounds massive but at the pivot patch this equate to 1-2 mm which aligns nicely with 1/6" 1/8" toe in

a weight, Plasticine or blur tack on the free end of the thread helps
crack the clamps on the track rods and soak all 4 in WD40 pentrating oil or.... well anything to make them easy to screw back and forth
you can lie feet going back under the car head sticking out near the front pumper looking at the thread and adjust the track rods with each hand.

you need to achieve a situation where you get the black dot 4-5 mm past the pin when the pin is at the front of the wheel
and ideally you achieve this by adjusting both track rods equally otherwise you introduce a slight pull left or right.
this gives you a smidge of toe in when standing still and hopefully that amounts to 0 toe in when the rolling resistance of the wheels causes everything to move slightly when in motion

have a cup of tea
do up the track rod clamps and take a gentle drive
No hands and it should not need correcting
steering should self centre from a corner
all good
go for a 10 minute drive
come back and check tyres for fresh peel on the very edges of the tread on the shoulders if none ... no scrubbing.

you are now in a position to say That'll do or to drive safely to the alignment place to get you handiwork checked
hopefully the chap does spot some tweaks he needs to make. if he doesn't i'd suggest you find a new alignment place


you are looking for a 1/16 to 1/8 inch toe in 1/8" is 3.175 mm
2.5* castor angle or more if you want it heavier
anything from 0-1* camber depending on how you like it in the corners if you are circuit racing on track you might want way more camber. 2 small hardened washers between ball joint and spindle mount can get you huge camber. but you don't need that unless competing, mancini racing do some special thicknesses


Its a bodge but it will get you going in a none tyre scrubbing way.

manual steerring
if you go for 16:1 then don;'t put the max castor in it really gets heavy
20:1 would be the manual box for a b body i'd suggest
24:1 and well your are spinning the wheel a mile to take a gentle curve i'd suggest a new steering box

the power boxes are something like 14:1 ratio.


if you still don't like it, you can, if you have a saginaw pump mess with the pressure
the pump has an outlet
if you take off the outlet stub under there is a valve
the valve is a 3-4 part thing with washers shims and a spring
increase the thickness of the washer pack to reduce power assistance or just use this valve from a slant 6 car
too much shim and the steering feels pulsey or notchy which might pique the interest of an MOT man

other things

the idler can have its rubber guts removed and replaced with a urethane bush or a metal bush and ball bearings.

you have effectively removed the steering damper, which is not great, but the benefit of not having the cross link move up and down as well as side to side when steering reduces bump steer and your new more solidly mounted perfectly swivelling idler can be shimmed up or down with washers to get the cross link perfectly horizontal.

fast ratio pitman arms: were designed for oval racing they succeed in making the ratio better but they make it better in the middle of the box where you don't want it. modern variable ratio steering is dead in the middle and gets faster to the ends closer to left or right full lock. the longer fast ratio Pittman arm does the exact reverse

it just makes it harder to stay going straight something you do only for seconds on a banked oval.

you can get the back end aligned as well

position on springs of the axle. i.e distance from front spring mount to clamp. and side to side positioning, then laser from rear wheel across front
and some places will gently flex the housing to correct any damage caused by smacking it into a big pot hole. it too should have a very slight toe in
when at standard height and at rest the axle rotates slightly backwards on the springs when under load you end up with 0 at speed. but i only know one person who had that done.

erm

too many words

i'll stop now :)

Dave
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Dave999
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Re: Information

Post by Dave999 »

when i last spoke to roger 18 months ago he would still do an alignment

and of course he has all the gear and experience of a least 2 dodge chargers

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morgan
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Post by morgan »

Dave I feel bad - there was you providing (even by your EPIC standards) an amazing post and all I did was 'Talk to Roger'. :oops:
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three counties
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Post by three counties »

Thanks Morgan, and Dave for your information, will read this all again later,and let it sink in, have been looking at a few YouTube videos, regarding removing the lower control arms,I can use someone's hydraulic press to remove the bushes, will probably try and make up a tool for removing the torsion bar, either out of alloy or wood? Dave, have you got a contact number for Roger please
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Post by morgan »

Torsion bar not as hard as you think. The trick is not to mark/damage then with getting them off if they are going back in.

Jack it up so suspension hanging, Wind off the adjustment (count the turns ! ), pop the split ring out of the rear end of bar and if you are lucky they will slide right out. If they dont, its only grit/grime/rust holding them there (assuming no car weight on them).

I made a tool from 2 plates that 'gently' gripped the torsion bar for 12" or so (even pressure) then gave the tool itself a whack with 'the persuader' (lump hammer). One the bar moves you can do it by hand.

I'll find the thread where I did it - it wasnt a bad job. Plus its practice for when you need to get to the starter motor and it wont come past the headers... :)
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three counties
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Re: Information

Post by three counties »

Thanks Morgan,if and when you could find your thread, please,no worries about getting the starter motor out, I've got the cast iron exhaust manifolds 👍
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Dave999
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Re: Information

Post by Dave999 »

lower bushes

burn out the rubber
pull out the centre and stud
cut off inner metal tube from stud
weld a washer into the opening
use a press to push out the shell

new ones
clean studs
put the studs into the bushes with the press
put the bushes with the stud already in. into the arms
can't put studs into mounted bushes easily

put onto car and put the nuts on loose. do not pull the studs into their TIGHT mounting until car is at ride height

torsion bars can be removed with tool or by using a 4 bolt head stock clamp from a BMX BMX handle bars and torsion bars much the same diameter

roger can be found here

https://pedders.co.uk/info-vauxhall-monaro

don't worry about the monaros he owns (owned) a dodge charger and can get you a urethane bush for your idler.

Dave
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Post by Dave999 »

id also strongly recommend that you only do the upper ball joints if you have to, its the bottom one that takes most of the battering

the pressed arms are good for about 2 or 3 changes and then there is no more metal left for thread.

i.e put new ball joints in before swapping bushes, in case you need new arms

put them in with the arms on the car


strut rod bushes get MOOG improved for your car..follow the instructions in the box, not in the manual


Dave
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three counties
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Re: Information

Post by three counties »

Thanks again Dave, for all the information, have already changed the upper and lower ball joints, have got most of the parts now, but I'm going to get a set of 4 track rod ends, will get in touch with Roger,👍
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Post by Pete »

I do not think that Roger offers this service any more... "Monkfish Performance"...

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Dave999
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Re: Information

Post by Dave999 »

Monkfish has gone, went when Holden shut down

but pedders.co.uk exists and he's expanded that massively

saw him at the last NATS whilst burning my fingers on bits of clutch plate


indicated that he could do one if requested as he had no intention of selling all the gear given the focus of his new expanding business

he may have changed his mind...

was 18 months ago

Dave
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