Advice re positive camber

[melanddoug]

Hi folks,

My 1971 traveller (very late- has a steering lock!) has positive camber at the front wheels. It's quite noticeable when just looking at the car. It hasn't always been that way: He was riding a bit low at the drivers side when I got him, and a while later the bottom trunnion on that side let go and the whole thing collapsed, so when it was fixed I asked the garage to raise that side to even it up.

Since then there's been positive camber. I assumed it was just part of raising the height too much or something (does look a bit high at the front, in that the wheel arch looks a bit high above the wheel), but I've just checked (roughly) the difference in height of the arm from inner swivel pin to outer, it's about 1 1/2" or thereabouts, so about right. Mr Haynes says it should be 1 5/8"

So why the positive camber?! I'd put up with it, but he keeps eating tyres at the outer edge. I expect the handling is suffering, too.

I noticed in a thread that for some cars with rubber bushes at the top trunnion (I think?) there should be a U-shaped washer/spacer in the eyebolt to fix the camber. The thread quoted this as part 183471-Z. I don't think I have such spacers on my traveller, but as I've never seen a non-rubber-bush trunnion to compare to, I'm not sure whether my car should have these. The camber suggests I need something like this.

So ..
* Ride looks high, bit maybe that's just my eyes
* Positive camber wearing tyres and quite visible
* Suspension arm height is about right from inner swivel pin to outer

Bit confused. Any advice ? Can anything else affect the camber ?

ta in advance..

Doug

[smithskids]

You need to fit spacers each side where the bolt securing the lower wishbone goes through the chassis legs. when you get the wheels vertical or just very slightly positive tighten every thing up and get the track rechecked. I run both my pickup and tourer with 1/2 degree negative and get no corner scrub off of the front tyres. Ask philthehill, he will give you the gen.

[philthehill]

The difference between the inner and outer suspension pins should indeed be 1 5/8" with the car un-laden.
The lower the car is set the more positive camber is induced. As the suspension rises in use the positive camber increases.
The increasing positive camber is built into the suspension movement and cannot be altered. What can be done is to increase the base negative camber at rest. Whilst the suspension will still go to positive camber it will be less than normally experienced if the eye bolt is packed out between the eye bolt head and the outer face of the chassis leg. The packing out of the eyebolt is limited by the length of the eyebolt shank but 1 1/2 degree negative camber should be obtainable using the standard eyebolt and packing. When assembled there should be at least two complete threads exposed past the eyebolt nut.
The packing should be large enough to cover the side of the chassis leg so as to spread the load.
The thickness of the packing will depend upon the negative camber required but the packing may require different thicknesses on the O/S and N/S to attain the same camber setting on both sides.
There are no eyebolts available with longer shanks to give additional negative camber unless you get them specially made.
Those shown below were made by Minor Mania but are no longer available.
The black plates in the bottom photo below are the spacing plates (made by me) and are large enough to spread the load over the outer face of the chassis leg.
The Minor Mania eye bolts came with special 'U' spacers so that the camber can be adjusted.
I have fitted the Minor Mania eye bolts with hard nylon bushes (supplied by Minor Mania), grease nipples and special inner trunnion pins (made by me). The eye bolts have now got front and rear thrust faces incorporated.
What ever and however you adjust the camber the suspension should be professionally checked for the correct settings and the tracking also should be set correctly.
Excess positive and negative camber will wear the tread of the tyres at the sides.
Your 1971 traveller will have the rubber bushes top trunnions. The horseshoe washer (Pt No: 183471-Z) was one of the parts used to incorporate the fitting of rubber top trunnions. See BMC Wksp Manual Section K11/K13 for details.
The horseshoe washer was fitted to ensure that the steering geometry (Nil to 1 degree camber) remained virtually the same as the geometry prior to the rubber top links being incorporated.
The castellated nut and the split pin as shown in the drawing were soon discarded and a plain nut and spring washer used instead.
One thing that BMC did not take into consideration when the top link rubber bushes were incorporated was the length of the threaded tail of the tie bar yoke. Washer Pt No: 183470Z was inserted and the additional thickness reduced the threaded tail of the tie bar yoke to the minimum in fact some would say below minimum - whilst I have never heard of the thread yokes failing it is of concern to me that I have started to make a pair of tie bar yokes with longer threaded tails.
The later Ital tie bar yokes which hold the lower tele damper brackets in place have a longer threaded tail. If anyone has a surplus pair of those Ital yokes I will happily take them of your hands.

[melanddoug]

philthehill: that is immensely helpful, and explains everything brilliantly, thank you loads. It's just what I needed.

I checked and found that there is no spacer on the driver's side eye-bolt, and possibly something on the passenger side- it looks a bit like yellowish metal like brass or copper.

There's about 1/4" thread exposed on the driver's side and only a couple of turns or thread on the passenger's.

Looks like someone missed the spacer out when they fixed the trunnion!

So effectively I can add a spacer of up to 1/4" or so to recoup. I'll have to do some careful measuring & a spot of amateur calculus to check that this will be enough.

I have to do something though. The tyres I've just trashed are worn through to the metal webbing at the outer, and have nearly full thread in the middle/inner. When I have the tyres replaced I'll have them check the tracking too (plus it'll need to be re-done after I amend the camber)

One question: I undid the driver's eyebolt nut a bit just to see if I could move the bolt in the chassis. It's pretty stuck. However I hadn't disconnected the suspension in any way so even with the car jacked up and the wheel just hanging, there would still be tension on the torsion bar, probably adding to its stuck-ness - is that correct ?

[philthehill]

To answer your question - there will still be tension on the torsion bar even with the wheel hanging free in mid air.
The lack of the horseshoe washer on the drivers side may be correct and the only way to determine if the camber is correct is to use a camber gauge. There are different types available for the home mechanic.
Here is one:- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Trakrite-Mag ... SwIylZ0iC3
With my own Minor I have had to fit different thickness of spacer between the eye bolt and chassis leg to get the camber as I want it.
The thickness of the spacer will be determined by how much the positive camber is now and how much negative camber you require.
You need to be aware that the chassis legs are not always as they should be or where they should be even from new.
To ensure that all was spot on I checked the camber of my front suspension with a professional Dunlop Caster and Camber gauge.