A while ago I had my stock struts with lowering springs and camber was way off, enough where tires wore really bad and unevenly. I recently put in new struts and had another alignment and for the most part the camber corrected itself.

Now when I had my alignment done I asked the technician about the camber, and he told me that even camber bolts would not fix this problem and that I should be prepared to spend a lot of $ on replacing tires frequently. My question is: the camber bolts on tirerack for $25 a pair, will they work and will one pair be enough for both wheels on the front? I just don't want to buy a set of new tires and have them wear badly again in a month. Thanks!

 

I'd also like to know the answer to this.

BTW, what springs/struts do you have now?

J.

 

When you had the alignment done, did they give you a printout of what the factory spec is, and the before and after specs from the alignment? I know Firestone does this. Can you post your camber results? Depending on how far your camber is off will depend on how many camber bolts you'll need. I have this problem on my right front wheel, but it's fixable if I throw on one additional camber bolt.

S

 

How do we know how many camber bolts to buy?

 

1) What springs are you running?
2) What are the actual camber readings?

If your not dropped more then ~1.8" you really shouldn't need to adjust your camber. If your camber is that far off with only a moderate drop, then you most likely have bent suspension components. Camber bolts will only be masking a problem.

Post your alignment readings and please tell us the spring/strut combo you have installed.

 

Cool. Well, I'm going to go with Progress springs and Illumina struts.

J.

 

Not neccssarily njmaxseltd. From the factory, these cars will still have some level of adjustability with the camber without camber bolts and still have it way off. The whole reason people say realign your car when you mess with the suspension is you can throw your camber (and even toe-in) off unintentionally when you remove the strut to spindle bolts. So it could be way off even with a moderate lowering. My car has a 1.2" drop, and the camber on the passenger side front was an entire degree off...and very noticeable. Another person, iansw, we put H&R's in his 4th gen, and a combination of camber and toe-in was off on his car after we put it back together. Also the possibility of actually bending suspension pieces would be unlikely, considering the car most likely did not have this problem until the lowering springs went in. Also, the car would of has to been airborne or wrecked to really bent suspension peices....it's just unheard of to me (then again, you may have heard of this happening more than me...I have no idea). The last thing to consider too is the quality of the shop. There are a few firestones up here, and no one machine is the same...and some of them can actually be off a little bit too. Iansw took his car to one firestone, got it aligned, but it was still off. He took it to another firestone, and they got it almost perfect, and the car has driven fine since.

S

 

Yeah, well I definately planned to get my alignment done when I get the suspension installed.

 

Are you going to do the work yourself, or are you planning to have a shop do it?

S

 

It depends on if I can get a good price on the install. <$100 hopefully.

If not, I'll have this kid from school help me. He did the springs on his Escort himself.

 

Well, lucky for you, doing struts/springs isn't terribly hard to do on a 4th or 5th gen. Takes a little time, but compared to the 2nd and 3rd gens, they are a cakewalk.

S

 

I am using one eibach camber bolt. I lowered my car w/ progress springs but for some reason my driver side camber was always negative and lowering it made it way off (-2.1 degrees; I dont recall crashing into a huge pothole or anything). The play in the stock bolts is good enough to correct camber about +1 degree so I used one camber bolt and replaced the top bolt on the knuckle-to-strut mounting bracket to set the camber back to 0. You should only have to use one bolt to correct per side. Never replace both bolts per side w/ camber bolts!!!

One thing about the camber bolts is the possibility of them breaking due to being overtorqued because theyre much smaller than stock. Also since you cant torque them like stock bolts they may be prone to slippage and ruining your alignment. Maybe thats what your tech guy was trying to say. Of course drenching the camber bolt and its associated hardware w/ loctite red before you install it will help. Loctite is anaerobic so when you tighten the nut and bolt up to the knuckle bracket the loctite will act like super glue. Just make sure everythings clean before you put loctite on it (that is, if you decide to use it). Hell I even cleaned up the knuckle and put loctite red on the mating surfaces too so when i put it back into the lower strut bracket it'll harden and hold it in place after i tighten it lol. Heard too many stories of people driving and all of the suddent their steering wheel ***** to one direction because the camber bolt slipped on them. Mine's been on for about 2 years and it hasnt budged at all. Too bad there arent affordable camber plates out there because I'd rather use those instead of these bolts.

 

I guess I will order the set of camber bolts, one for each side. My question is, how hard of an install is it and how do I know which way to adjust it? I have never dealt with suspension so don't know how complex they are...Thanks!

 

Basically you replace the upper bolt w/ the camber bolt and you adjust the included tab on the bolt itself to change teh camber. While facing the strut to add positive camber you turn the tab pointing towards you. For negative camber you turn it away from you (towards the center of the car). It is very easy to install and adjust but it is time consuming. It will come w/ an instruction sheet.

Here's a pic of it installed


This is my camber measuring kit. I made sure my garage floor's flat. (used a loooong 2x4 and a level to confirm).


I used the round container because my wheelspokes are curved.

Since the wheel center is flat I used the round container to clear the axle spline and use the bottom of the container as the measuring surface. The way I did it was time consuming but I ended up w/ 0 camber on both sides.

How I took my measurement


I jacked up the front end of the car, I took the wheel off, I adjusted the camber bolt and noted how much the knuckle was sticking out of the mounting bracket. I tighted everything up, reinstalled the wheel, and lowered the car and let it settle. Then I use my camber measuring kit and take note of the sight glass bubble. I kept repeating these steps until the sight glass bubble was centered. Once centered I raised my car up, took my wheel off, and make sure both the stock bolt and camber bolt are properly torqued. Then I bolted my wheel back on, lowered the car and let it sit overnight. It may not be perfect and you'd might end up w/ a slight positive camber, so Id try to put a bit of negative camber when doing this

It took around 45 min per side but at least I was able to leave my car sitting there overnight to make sure the loctite dried completely. If the alignment guy did it of course he'll tell you to take off. I'm sure there is a better way to do this but it worked well for me. I saved $65 or whatever the shop wanted to install one bolt.

Afterwards I took the car to the alignment shop to have them adjust the toe and to confirm my camber "readings".

Recently I had my motor swapped out and the suspension was disconnected. However the driver side knuckle was left attached to the strut the whole time. When I got my alignment done the camber reading is at -.02 degrees (due to suspension being disconnected). Safe to say that after 2 yrs the bolt never budged.

 

Wow, that's some great info you got there.
But what if I planned to have some shop install my springs/struts because i don't have time to do it myself? I'd probably get an alignment at the same time.

Is it ok to add the camber bolts afterwards?

J.

 

Well usually those guys dont like being told what to do or think youre nuts if you suggest them to use loctite etc but if you get them to install/adjust the camber bolt after your spring install just let the car sit there for an hour before you drive off to let the loctite red harden somewhat and avoid rough roads. It takes 1 day for loctite red to fully cure

You can install the camber bolts yourself afterwards but you'll throw off the toe settings so you'll need to take it back to the shop for an alignment again.

 

Pretty neat innovative thinking.

 

Good reading thread. Keep in mind toe in/out causes more wear than camber. I've run as much as -2.5deg camber on the street w/o much wear. The tire will scrub a bit til it lies flat with the surface then will wear normally.

I just raised my front up nearly 4" going from shortend coilovers back to stock. The resulting toe was -1.7deg total. The car tracked straight but the fronts heated up to over 110deg on hwy driving from the constant scrubbing. Keeping camber within a tenth but bringing toe back out to spec got rid of all the scrubbing.

 

Well, after calling around to some places to ask about pricing for a spring/strut install, I might just wait and have a friend help me. I'll call 2 other places on Monday.

 

get a real suspension and this would not happen


i was on sprints and i did not need alignment bolts

 

what a cracker