Complicated front camber situation

[catahoula lou]

Group:

On my 1959 ragtop bug, I had all-around EMPI disc brakes installed. This required a 2" narrowed front beam and the shop installed 2" drop spindles as well. I measured my torsion bar offsets and both sides are 7.5 mm. I used the correct number of link pin shims (6/4 top pins, 5/5 bottom pins), as indicated on the various charts.

However, I noticed that my RHS tire leans inward and my LHS tire leans outward, with both tires pointing "perfectly forward". Confirmed this situation using a torpedo level. Obviously, not good situation (different handling to the right/left)...

So, I measured the front beam set-up to see if the shop made a mistake. All four torsion arm bolts measured 40mm from the front beam vertical connecting plates. It appears that the shop built the front end correctly and that I have no bent torsion bars (offsets fall within specs).

A little history: while teaching my nephew how to drive a manual car a few years back, he ran us into a large eucalyptus tree, with the impact pretty much right of center. As a result, my pan is twisted lengthwise, in that the right front is slightly higher than my left front.

After filling my tires to the same side-to-side pressures (19 PSI front, 28 PSI rear), I measured how high the bottom of the front beam ends were from a horizontal concrete floor (verified with a 4-foot level). The right end is about 1cm higher than the left end.

This is the likely explanation for both front tires leaning toward the left.

Many of the manuals that address shimming link pins advise against exceeding the shimming shown on the charts, as it could result in binding and/or excessive tire wear.

My question: To get the correct 40' +/- 30' camber in both wheels, can I safely exceed the shimming shown on the charts? For example, can I go down to a 2/8 or 1/9 shimming to compensate for the twist in my pan? I've already been to a couple of frame shops, neither of which want to address the twist.

Best,
Thom
_________________
1 great wife
2 Catahoula Leopard Dogs (Mahogany Star and Spartan) - RIP Lucy, Braveheart, & Dusty!
1 1959 mango green Ragtop Bug (the "Mango")
1 1958 pantina red Lowlight Ghia (the "Chili Pepper")

Still looking for:
(1) My Dad's 1955 356 (he raced it amateur-class at Riverside and other courses during 1950s),
(2) My parent's black 1955 hardtop bug (CA license plate FWC 201 or FWG 201), and
(3) My parent's agave green 1957 ragtop bug (CA license plate LFK 734).

[Chad M]

My '62 sunroof beetle had some funky shimming similar to what you're suggesting prior to my rebuilding the whole front end. I put specified shims for my offset and the car goes down the road better than it did before. I'd say give it try, but I'd also say you need to attend to that pan, either repair or replace it.

[KTPhil]

Maybe an off-road frame shop can bend yours back to level. They have hydraulic jigs and the only question is, do they know where to clamp to your frame/pan to get it right. If you can find one that has worked on VW buggies then they have it down already.

[catahoula lou]

Chad: Description of front wheel cambers is with proper shimming.

KTPhil: Can't untwist pan, because I'm finally getting the door gaps where I want them and really have no way to fix them again. See following thread of my concurrent work on the body/pan head/door gaps:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=664908&highlight=

So, I'm really backed into a corner of sorts, and looking for feedback on the shimming questions I posted earlier. Hopefully, from folks who have dealt with a similar situation or know about the limitations of shimming pins outside of what the charts suggest for in-spec offsets.

In other words, I guess I'm dealing with a situation similar to one or more bent torsion bars/tubes/whatever, without such problems actually having occurred...

Best,
Thom
_________________
1 great wife
2 Catahoula Leopard Dogs (Mahogany Star and Spartan) - RIP Lucy, Braveheart, & Dusty!
1 1959 mango green Ragtop Bug (the "Mango")
1 1958 pantina red Lowlight Ghia (the "Chili Pepper")

Still looking for:
(1) My Dad's 1955 356 (he raced it amateur-class at Riverside and other courses during 1950s),
(2) My parent's black 1955 hardtop bug (CA license plate FWC 201 or FWG 201), and
(3) My parent's agave green 1957 ragtop bug (CA license plate LFK 734).

[KTPhil]

The shims are not made to set camber. They are set to ensure the link pin sliding surfaces are parallel to the movement at the other end of the torsion arms. The arms can get bent or worn, and this shimming compensates for this. The camber is a function of the king pin/steering knuckle.

If the pivoting of the arms is out of whack, shimming will make it seem right at one position, but every time the suspension works up and down, you will be wearing out surfaces that aren't supposed to wear.

So you should try to find out if the arms are bent or if the beams are somehow cocked.

In other words, find where the bent parts are (root cause) , before trying to compensate elsewhere and wear things out.

[catahoula lou]

According to various manuals, the way I understand it is that if the offset is within 5-9 mm, it's within spec and does not indicate bent torsion bars. Both offsets are exactly the same 7.5 mm and the new beam/drop spindles/disc brakes/torsion bars/pins/etc. have maybe 40 miles on them since this system was built out of new parts.

I understand what you said about not adjusting camber with the shims and that if the wrong number of shims are used (intentionally or not) various parts would wear out (didn't know that).

Interesting, in that my 1964 Elfrink VW service book states that camber should be set at 40' +/- 30', indicating at first glance (without actually stating) that camber can be adjusted on a K&L front end. However, I now suspect that that particular camber is "automatically" set when using the right number of shims per the measured offset. Am I right on this?

Damn, I was hoping for a relatively simple work-around, given the door gap situation noted in my other thread shown above...

Best,
Thom
_________________
1 great wife
2 Catahoula Leopard Dogs (Mahogany Star and Spartan) - RIP Lucy, Braveheart, & Dusty!
1 1959 mango green Ragtop Bug (the "Mango")
1 1958 pantina red Lowlight Ghia (the "Chili Pepper")

Still looking for:
(1) My Dad's 1955 356 (he raced it amateur-class at Riverside and other courses during 1950s),
(2) My parent's black 1955 hardtop bug (CA license plate FWC 201 or FWG 201), and
(3) My parent's agave green 1957 ragtop bug (CA license plate LFK 734).

[KTPhil]

[KTPhil]

Think about every part in this diagram... new or used? Can it wear out? Was it checked before assembly?

Then think about how it is mounted, and what it is mounted to... something in this chain is worn or bent.

EDIT:
Ok, I went back and reread your post about bending the pan with a tree.

So you have to get creative, and without seeing your setup, I can't do it remotely. I'd go back to your magic shop and ask them about shimming the body on the pan, shimming the front axle, putting a "custom bent/welded" axle in place of yours, or other ways to set things right.

Shims won't do it, even though many VW and non-VW people say it can work. It will... for a while, and then wear things out.

[Slow 1200]

Have you checked the location of the torsion leaves dimples? If they are off it can cause exactly what you are describing (one side goes in and the other out)

[Dougy Dee]

Dont disregard the drop spindles being wrong.
The king pin bore for them can easily be wonky. It would create a bind or pinch point in the spindle carrier as well as misalignment.
It could also be the actual spindle not pressed accurately in the new casting/forging.

[TinCanFab]

I would put a set of original spindles on just to eliminate your drop spindles as the problem. Some people have had some defective sets from Empi.
_________________
Check out my truck brought back from the dead... http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=420762&highlight=sprayed+blood

They're never really ever finished 58 rag build...
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=658092

[catahoula lou]

KTPhil:

Lots of great advice, thank you! Considering all of the frame/structural problems this car has, even after the shop did it's "quality" work (if we ever meet, we'll have to sit down with a beer or two and discuss), I'm very reluctant to untwist the pan and then shim the body, as I have no idea where that will ultimately lead me WRT door gaps. Believe me, this has been a long 2+year pan-off restoration and I'm still repairing the work the shop did.

So, I'm likely resigned to either drive it as it is, or try to adjust camber via shimming. Having been my baby since 1979 or so, I'll likely drive less than 1,000 miles per year. Given that, what exactly will wear out and (I won't hold you to it) how many miles can I get away with?

For example, if just the shims wear out and it takes ~10,000 miles for that to happen, I would have no problem re-shimming every 5-10 years, depending on actual mileage driven.

Do you ever head out to the Inland Empire (Redlands, San Bernardino) area? If so, let me know in advance and I can show my car to you.

In the meantime, I'll give Buddy Hale an update call and see what he suggests...

Best,
Thom
_________________
1 great wife
2 Catahoula Leopard Dogs (Mahogany Star and Spartan) - RIP Lucy, Braveheart, & Dusty!
1 1959 mango green Ragtop Bug (the "Mango")
1 1958 pantina red Lowlight Ghia (the "Chili Pepper")

Still looking for:
(1) My Dad's 1955 356 (he raced it amateur-class at Riverside and other courses during 1950s),
(2) My parent's black 1955 hardtop bug (CA license plate FWC 201 or FWG 201), and
(3) My parent's agave green 1957 ragtop bug (CA license plate LFK 734).

[KTPhil]

If you leave the camber out of range, the car will pull to one side, especially at freeway speeds. It can be fatiguing to drive.

I know this, because I have something slightly bent on the front of my (ball joint) Type 3. The adjustment range of the ball joints (even adjusting the bottom, which you are not supposed to do), can't get them even side to side. It is not drastic, but it will drag to one side on the highway. My work-around (purists beware) is to put 1-2 psi more air on the side it wants to pull to. This makes it track straight on the highway now. It has no effect at low speeds where the pull is also insignificant. One of these days I will tear down my spare front beam and rebuild it, and see if that gets me back in range. In the meantime it tracks, though I can feel some "corkscrewing" during recovery if I go over uneven bumps that require some steering correction. I am used to it now but every so often it feels funny, sort of like being in a crosswind.

I'm not sure I can recommend this solution, since yours seems to be quite a bit off. Maybe shave it on several fronts...go one shim past the table and then try the air pressure trick, and see how it tracks and handles. Lube and adjust it often!

[catahoula lou]

Interesting idea. I think that I will install my windshield (no glass at all right now) so that I can do a test drive on freeway/mountain roads to my cabin. Odd how you can get a ticket for driving a car without a windshield, even with motorcycle goggles, which is not unlike legally riding a motorcycle (actually happened to me me in college in the 80s)!

If it tracks/corners decently, maybe all I'll need to do is the air pressure approach and test again.

Will give an update within a week or so, after I've made time...

Best and thanks,
Thom
_________________
1 great wife
2 Catahoula Leopard Dogs (Mahogany Star and Spartan) - RIP Lucy, Braveheart, & Dusty!
1 1959 mango green Ragtop Bug (the "Mango")
1 1958 pantina red Lowlight Ghia (the "Chili Pepper")

Still looking for:
(1) My Dad's 1955 356 (he raced it amateur-class at Riverside and other courses during 1950s),
(2) My parent's black 1955 hardtop bug (CA license plate FWC 201 or FWG 201), and
(3) My parent's agave green 1957 ragtop bug (CA license plate LFK 734).

[rockerarm]

Thom, PM sent.
Bill.

[modok]

There is no real weak link in the system, so it's not unusual for every part to be bent. It was nice of them to tell us what the camber was supposed to be. If things are bent, sometimes they can be straightened, sometimes not.

In my experience the link pin front end has a LOT of flex, and will accommodate being in a slight bind, so yes I think you can "fudge" being two shims off one way or another, BUT, that's not solving the problem.
The chassis is wedged.
The most straight forward way to make the best of it, is adjust the rear torsion bars so the front beam sits level. This should restore balanced steering and braking. The rear springs are adjustable independantly and the front are not, so, that's all you can do.

[catahoula lou]

OK, I solved the camber problem. The advantage of being a geologist/hydrogeologist, is that I have a K+E pocket transit (same as a Brunton compass), which includes an accurate inclinometer for measuring dip (maximum slope) of planar geologic surfaces (sedimentary rocks, fault surfaces, etc).

After re-verifying a level surface between my front/rear wheels using a 4-foot level, pumping same pressures in my tires (18PSI front/28PSI rear) using my dial-in B+D automatic pump, I re-verified that my front beam does slant to the LHS, and that I visually had negative camber on the RHS/positive camber on the LHS, due to the slanting front beam/twisted pan (see previous post).

Using the inclinometer, I measured ~1o RHS negative camber/~1.25o LHS positive camber, using the flat wheel mounting surfaces of my EMPI front disk brakes, forward and rear of the dust caps as a double-check. To me, this indicates that my front end was assembled correctly and do not have bent torsion arms, because the front beam/twisted pan had rotated the dual positive camber wheels to the described camber.

NOTE: I had ~7.5mm offset on both sides and had shimmed in/out 6/4 (10 total) upper and 5/5 (10 total) lower on both sides, prior to using the inclinometer.

I estimated that 2 shims are ~1mm thickness, which equals ~0.5mm/shim. Using ~130mm between the linkpin centerlines, 1 shim equals ~0.2o.

Doing the math, and keeping within the shimming extremes, I re-shimmed my RHS to in/out 7/3 (10 total) upper and 3/7 (10 total) lower, resulting in ~0.75o negative camber, and I re-shimmed my LHS to in/out 3/7 (10 total) upper and 7/3 (10 total) lower, resulting in ~1o negative camber.

Considering that VW specifies (albeit, positive) camber at 40' +- 30' (70' to 10' = 1.17o to 0.17o), the resulting cambers are within tolerances WRT front bearing wear/life.

Before the purists comment on my new negative camber (I do appreciate and have considered their previous comments!), consider that according to my neighbor who is a walking Porsche encyclopaedia, his Porsche 996 has a slight negative camber in the rear to assist handling. So, I figure that slight negative camber in front/rear, along with my heavy-duty front swaybar, rear camber compensator, and Vredestein tires, should maximize my handling in the mountains where I live. Furthermore, any more shimming (8/2, 2/8; 9/1, 1/9; etc) would likely not get me to positive camber on both sides, so I'm relatively happy with the results.

In addition, the Riverside CA area VW shop that had rebuilt my pan during a pan-off restoration, including installing all-around disc brakes, had installed the following shims on my front end:

RHS: in/out 3/4 (7 total) upper, 3/5 (8 total) lower
LHS: in/out 2/9 (11 total) upper, 5/0 (5 total) lower

So, even though I'm considered out-of-spec WRT my offsets, at least I have installed the correct TOTAL number of shims for each linkpin...

BTW, my wife said I should give the following disclaimer (WTH?): This applies only to my car, if you apply same to your car you assume all responsibility.

Best,
Thom
_________________
1 great wife
2 Catahoula Leopard Dogs (Mahogany Star and Spartan) - RIP Lucy, Braveheart, & Dusty!
1 1959 mango green Ragtop Bug (the "Mango")
1 1958 pantina red Lowlight Ghia (the "Chili Pepper")

Still looking for:
(1) My Dad's 1955 356 (he raced it amateur-class at Riverside and other courses during 1950s),
(2) My parent's black 1955 hardtop bug (CA license plate FWC 201 or FWG 201), and
(3) My parent's agave green 1957 ragtop bug (CA license plate LFK 734).

[EVfun]

You really shouldn't be adjusting camber with the shims. The problem is you are making the link pins run at an angle compared to the link pin bushing. The error in the angle between the link pin and the link pin bushing is the amount you changed the alignment angle compared to when the shims where correctly installed based on trailing arm offset. This can cause binding and excessive wear. I've been known to go one shim more negative on the right side to help the Bug go strait on a normal crowned road when assembling used parts, but I wouldn't think of carrying it beyond a 1 shim error from the measured result.
_________________

[catahoula lou]

I understand. However, the uneven handling that I would get with positive camber on one side and negative camber on the other is something I'm not willing to put up with.

The alternative would be to buy a straight replacement pan and transfer everything over from my old/twisted pan. Considering I already have several hundred$ into the pan (new pan halves, 2 frame shops to fix bent transaxle horns from a previous hard rear-ender, strip/re-paint pan, new pan head) and the time/labor cost to transfer the transaxle, front axle, body, and possibly the rear torsion bars/spring plates if the replacement pan is really bare, and that I can't ethically sell the twisted pan to another person to re-coup my costs, that's just not going to happen.

Best,
Thom
_________________
1 great wife
2 Catahoula Leopard Dogs (Mahogany Star and Spartan) - RIP Lucy, Braveheart, & Dusty!
1 1959 mango green Ragtop Bug (the "Mango")
1 1958 pantina red Lowlight Ghia (the "Chili Pepper")

Still looking for:
(1) My Dad's 1955 356 (he raced it amateur-class at Riverside and other courses during 1950s),
(2) My parent's black 1955 hardtop bug (CA license plate FWC 201 or FWG 201), and
(3) My parent's agave green 1957 ragtop bug (CA license plate LFK 734).

[KTPhil]

Glad it's working for you. Lube it often and check if it is changing, indicating rapid wear.

One other note... negative camber at the rear is good for handling, but a little positive camber in front usually works best. I've seem many tricked BMWs with this setup, so it's not just a rear-engine thing. VW specifies a slight positive camber on most, if not all, of the AC models.