Rear Toe question

[robcy04]

I had my 79 Vert aligned after rebuilding the front and rear suspensions. I lowered my car to the bottom ring on the topline strut's (about 4 inches), and lowered the rear one notch (about 3.5 inches).

Is rear Toe adjustable?
Is there a front camber bolt that allows more adjustment?
I am guessing that front Caster is harder to adjust?

I was told that the rears will wear faster because of the Toe, but that it would not be to much. It does drive so much better now.

[[email protected]]

The rear toe on our cars is adjustable on the springplates, it’s just that most shops never do anything with it since most VW owners don’t want to pay more than $50 for an alignment.

Topline has an extreme eccentric bolt/bushing kit to give extra camber adjustments.

http://toplineparts.com/vw-front-end/camber-kit-for-74-to-79-super-beetle-88-2511l.html

If I’m reading your screen correctly, it looks as if you have 0.9 degrees positive caster on the right, and and the left has 0.5 degrees negative. This will cause your front end to be EXTREMELY sensitive to ANY abnormal tire wear, and most likely be very sensitive/difficult to drive at highway speeds. I’d again look at what Topline has available to gain caster in the way of eccentric sway bar bushings, and angled sway bars. Worst case scenario, you could have material removed at the end of the sway bar to use some stacked shims/washers to allow the arms to be installed on the ends of the swaybar further. I have a friend that adapted a set of Porsche 944 caster plates used ontop of the strut to allow more adjustment for his drag car. I’d be looking to get at least 1.5-2.0 degrees positive caster.

[beetlenut]

Did you also purchase these when you bought your Topline struts?

Caster
http://toplineparts.com/caster-fix-bushings-for-topline-78-sway-bar.html
http://toplineparts.com/caster-fix-bushings-for-stock-sway-bar.html

Camber
http://toplineparts.com/camber-kit-for-74-to-79-super-beetle-88-2511l.html
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scrapyards are for quitters
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[robcy04]

[Frodge]

[robcy04]

[beetlenut]

I just found the caster-fix bushings the other day while looking for something else. I thought I put them on, but nope. They only move the sway bar forward about 1/8 - 1/4 inch,but I guess that provides enough adjustment for a lowered bug. My car goes into the shop Tuesday for it's first alignment after a total rebuild, including the rear toe. The diagonal arms have slots in them where the spring plates attach, allowing fore and aft movement for the toe adjustment.
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scrapyards are for quitters
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[[email protected]]

[MACJELLY58]

I was wondering the same thing about the rear Toe. I had recently rebuilt my rear end and I measured and marked the the Spring Plate and stuff like I had read about. Then I got the tires on and the right rear looked like it was noticeable Toe in(positive). I don't have picture right now but here is the before putting it on the ground. You can kinda see it Toeing inward. With the tire on, it's really noticeable.

Here's something like what I got (sorry, not trying to out you Vam. )

My wheel visibly looks worse to me. I'll try and re-seat the Pivot arm and eyeball the Spring Plate bolts and adjust. I must have not done a good job with the marking.
Does anyone have a link to thread that covers a DIY alignment to get it close, so I can get it to an alignment shop?

[Multi69s]

The problem that I have found is the 99.9% of the alignment shops do not have the specs for our older VWs. They just go by what is preprogrammed into their machines. If you have a Bentley and are lucky, you might have a shop that can enter these coordinates into their machines. However, I wouldn't count on it. My town has over 500K people, and I only know of two shops that can do a 4 wheels alignment on our bugs.
_________________
69 road Bug 2110
73 Squareback - 2L, T4, Automatic W/ AC
Gone, but many fond memories 69 Baja Bug 2010 - 5 Rib Bus Transaxle
Gone but not forgotten 72 Baja Bug 2010
My builds
T4 into Squareback http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=458944&highlight=
Auto Trans Rebuild http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=516066&highlight=
AC in Squareback https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[beetlenut]

I just got back from the alignment shop this afternoon. I provided them with the specs out of the Bentley, and they did a pretty good job on a 4 wheel alignment. Got the toe pretty close in the rear. They could have used more camber up front, but got it as close as they could with the Camber+ kit by Top Line. I am going to look into the camber plates for the top of the struts to give me more adjustment in the future, but I'm happy with the way it drives after being completely torn apart for the last 10 years.
_________________
scrapyards are for quitters
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[Multi69s]

Congratulations. Even armed with a Bentley. I've had shops tell me, that if that data was pre programmed into their machines, they couldn't help me.
_________________
69 road Bug 2110
73 Squareback - 2L, T4, Automatic W/ AC
Gone, but many fond memories 69 Baja Bug 2010 - 5 Rib Bus Transaxle
Gone but not forgotten 72 Baja Bug 2010
My builds
T4 into Squareback http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=458944&highlight=
Auto Trans Rebuild http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=516066&highlight=
AC in Squareback https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[goober]

In my non-expert experience, (let me stress non-expert) it's not only the toe in the rear, it's the toe in relation to the centerline of the vehicle.

I use a homemade gauge to set the toe while it points to the centerline. I then rotate the gauge, re-check the toe and note how far the pointer is off to one side or the other. You have to have the trans mounted in place for it's the trans center rib that's the centerline of the car (according to Bentley).

The wheel pair need toe plus be parallel to the centerline (or as close as I can get it). I can have proper toe but if my rear wheels are racked to the right or left of the centerline it will make for a skittish handling car on slick surfaces.