Greg,
I too suffered the heartbreak of excessive positive camber for many years
on my BJ8 (though not quite as severe as your affliction). I got a set
of nylon/graphite offset bushes from BCS and got as much pos. camber
out as I could with them. I think they will give a max of 1.5-2deg adjustment.
I then went to a frame/alignment shop (Freeman Frame in San Jose) who
got underneath with a hydraulic ram and did who knows what to get the wheels
near 1 deg pos. as specified. The difference in handling was
noticeable; i.e. better turn-in.
I suspect they just weren't that picky at the factory when they installed the
shock mounting plates, erring on the pos. camber side. That, and some
variation in the shock arm length can cause excessive pos. camber.
Our 100M has excessive neg. camber. I asked the list if it's feasible to
bend the shock arms to compensate; the answers were all over the place,
from "DON'T DO IT" to "sure, but use some heat" and "sure, but don't use
heat." Peter at Worldwide Auto says they do it, and don't use heat.
bs
***************************************************************
Bob Spidell San Jose, CA bspidell@comcast.net
'67 Austin-Healey 3000 '56 Austin-Healey 100M
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-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Greg Lemon" <glemon@neb.rr.com>
> After scratching my head and guessing that the outside wear on my front tires
> was due to incorrect toe-in I recently bought new tires and rather than wear
> these out wanted to fix the problem.
>
> It turns out, based upon my level, that I have some pretty significant
> positive camber on the fronts, i.e. the top of the fronts stick out maybe an
> inch to 1.5" more than the bottoms.
>
> Is this a common problem with older Healeys? the front suspension is recently
> rebuilt, nothing seems bent and there is no sign of accident damage.
>
> My first thought was to fix with offset bushes, I asked Dennis Welch about how
> many degrees they could correct for with their offset bushes and just got a
> nebulous answer. By eyeballing I don't think there would be enough adjustment
> in their bushings to fix my problem.
>
> Any thought on a fix short of re-engineering the front suspension?
>
> Greg Lemon
> 54 BN1
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