excessive negative camber

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Tbyrd1963
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 8:59 pm

excessive negative camber

Post by Tbyrd1963 »

Hello all,
I am new to the forum and have a few questions.
I just put new radial tires on my bird at the beginning of the season and im noticing some excessive camber on my passenger front tire and it is causing my tire to wear irregularly... im nervous about driving on it for too long and really messing them up. i wanted to know if any one knows of a camber adjustment? will the shop i get it aligned take care of it? am i looking at replacing control arms and control arm bushings? any and all suggestions appreciated!!!!
Thanks, Nick
bbogue
Posts: 850
Joined: Wed May 01, 2013 3:04 am

Re: excessive negative camber

Post by bbogue »

Nick, here's a thread about alignment specs and radial vs bias ply tires that may be of some use. You'll need to decide how you want the car aligned...it's doubtful your shop will have the original specs...and, as you may gather from the thread, radial tires changes things a bit. Caster goes from negative to slightly positive with radials, I believe, although some, myself included, have found that getting positive caster is a struggle due limited available adjustment.

http://www.vintagethunderbirdclub.net/p ... +alignment

As I recall, camber is adjusted on these cars by adding or removing shims.

I'd look for a shop with experience on antique cars.

Good luck.

Bill
Past owner 1961 Thunderbird - Heritage Burgundy Metallic

If there are no dogs in heaven, send me where they went. - Will Rogers
tbird
Posts: 2586
Joined: Sat May 10, 2008 11:07 pm
Location: Tyndall MB. Canada

Re: excessive negative camber

Post by tbird »

You should take the car in to a good alignment shop preferably with a grey or white hair tech they should have all the info to set it to factory spec. You may want to talk to him about a minor change in the toe setting to compensate for the radial tires as the settings will be biased on the original factory tires which were bias ply tires, assume that you now have radials.
Jim Mills
VTCI # 8071
VTCI 1964-66 Technical Editor
2002 Thunderbird
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Karl
Posts: 993
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:03 pm
Location: Brisbane, Australia

Re: excessive negative camber

Post by Karl »

G'day Nick.
You say that you don't want to drive the car because you may mess up the tyres. Once the tyres have irregular wear, by fixing the problem you will not correct the tyre wear, they will still wear in the irregular pattern.
What I would do is if they still have some life in them is have the steering geometry fixed, put some new tyres on the front and have a wheel alignment done then put the worn tyres on the rear to get your moneys worth out of them. As mentioned before, take the car to somebody that deals in old cars and knows what they are doing.

If your car has the wrong springs on it to make the car low this too will contribute to a tyre wear problem.
Karl.
1963 Thunderbird Hardtop
novanutcase
Posts: 1814
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2008 2:58 am

Re: excessive negative camber

Post by novanutcase »

Hello Nick,

Welcome to the Forum!

One thing you're going to want to make sure your shop has are the shims needed to align the car. They are ridiculously expensive for what they are so if you can find some prior to going to your alignment shop it will probably cost you less to have it aligned than if you buy them from the shop.

BTW I cut the springs on the car in the sig below and it actually IMPROVED the geometry of the car. With stock height springs the lower arms angled down from the shaft to the ball joint. Driving it like this made the car kind of twitchy at speed. When I cut the springs the lower arm was level to the ground and the car seemed much more stable at speed. My alignment guy had no problems aligning it and I had no uneven wear issues with the tires even though I had the camber set at 1* negative. I also dearched the rear leafs an inch in case you were wondering.

John
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Tbyrd1963
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 8:59 pm

Re: excessive negative camber

Post by Tbyrd1963 »

Thanks for all the advice everyone! now just to find a shop in my area that I can trust enough to touch my bird...lol
Another thing can my tire size and model have an affect at all? Thanks again everyone!!
Nick
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