how do "you" set wheel alignment correctly ?
Turbo Mini Forums

o yeah tie rod bushes?
soft Rubber on both sides?
hard Polly on both sides?
mix of each?

i had Polly to the front of the car and Rubber to the rea of the car

rubber has started showing slight cracks so need to sort it now what do you think?

The camber gauge worked well for me. But for the amount I used it, next time I'll just measure the angles with a phone app ("Clinometer"). With a bit of care, I got the same accuracy and repeatability last time.

Calculating castor from camber at +/- 20° steering is what I'd do next time. I measured it directly last time, which was a pain.

In the past I've gone through rubber bushes too quickly. Some were on a car that hardly did any miles, while a second set bought at the same time were fine sat on a shelf in the garage. I've put it down to cleaning them with the wrong chemicals (WD40) when you can get stuff specifically for rubber.

Never had any luck with poly bushes. I'd sooner move to a rose jointed arms than try again.

Because I'm a cheap bastard, I made a bracket to hold a digital angle finder like this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digi-Pas-Torpedo-D...r/dp/B0016Z1084 to the centre of the wheel.

After getting the car level using the digital level and thin sheets of wood and plastic (I used 2 sheets of plastic at the front with WD40 between them to make the wheels slide around).

I then set the castor set up by attaching my digital angle finder and zeroing the angle with the wheels turned out at 20 degrees then taking the measurement of the angle with the wheels turned 20 degrees in (40 degree turn in total). I then adjusted the tie rods to suit.

To do the tracking I made two homemade tracking plates out if MDF (like the attachment) and two tape measures to get the wheels to the correct toe.

Attachments:

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Edited by Smackfiend on 3rd Apr, 2016.

concrete pad is occupied and waiting on tie rod bushes so not much groin on except the camber cage started but not finished maby finish that in a day or two

also haveing moved the mini its a touch to low so ill need to lift in a half inch or so the rea scrubs a little so want to sort that it needs to be street friendly as its a weekend/track toy

so once my pad is empty ill set roll the car back on the leval pads and lift the car a litle bit and then wait for the bushings fit thoses and get back on the set up between that i should get the camber gauge completed and set aside ready

ok guys ive spent a bit of time today back n forth inching my way closer to target 1.5 camber 3.5 castor shit all toe settings but ive noticed something that each side of the car is not equal when doing the castor angles ie ill set the wheels 20 degree one difrection and mesure the "camber" ie set the digital angle gauge on the rim top to bottom zero it then flip it 180 to get the reading thats all fine say its 1.8 then i go to the other side of the car and take the reading and say its 3.6 ok so then ill turn the wheels back straing and 20 degrees the other way and repeat take the readings as above and it will be like say 0.8 and 4.6 or something with those pairs of theritacle numbers on each side you get 4.6 castor so the over all numbers the same but its more when turning one way than the other so surely not anygood?



id be expecting to see close to the same or excatly the same each side?

tie rods are dead on the same length and the straight ahead camber is dead equal at 1.5 so how can the castor be diffrent?

do i need to now push the tie rod in/out to make the sides equal? there must be something out of line in the subframe or something as id expect if the tie rods where dead equal and the camber was dead equal than castor should be equal so to me the only thing to try is tierod

going to check in tomorow morning to see what you guys think then go have a go

Caster and camber affect each other. Even (or especially) with standard component they tolerances and wear will give different caster each side.
With adjustable stuff it is more important to get the caster the same than the camber. But with time and constant tweaking you can usually get them both pretty damn close to the target values.

So - get the caster right first.
Then measure the camber & tweak it.
Re-check and reset the caster.
Then measure the camber & tweak it.
...& repeat

Don't be surprised if the tie rods end up different lengths.