[HWYSTR455]

Originally Posted by Squidward

Yup, that's how I do it. I use the spring's tension with the nut backed off a few threads.

I just get nervous when folks heat parts like ball joints, why I mentioned!

.

[Squidward]

I just give a very small and localized heat on the knuckle so I don't cook the grease or the boot.

I got some caster set up tonight. I have close to +1 degree each side, about -.5 camber, and 1/16" toe in. I took it for a drive, and it handles very nice except for 1 issue: it is not as self centering as I would like, so it might need more caster. It behaves better during decel, and worse during accel. It is too quick to deviate off a straight track during accel and cruise. It's probably a small combo of a couple of things.

Pics, tho, of the ball joint job:

[HWYSTR455]

Ah, gotcha, had an image of the stud itself being heated! Heheh!

Yeah, usually what I do is, I have the alignment guy start with as much caster as possible, and dial it back only in order to get other specs in line. On stock stuff, if you can get 3 caster, I'd be shocked. Best usually ends up in the 1.5-2.5 range, if you're lucky. I would try to keep camber as close to 0 as possible, only going towards neg like you did to help get other numbers in line.

Nice, knocking it out! I need to get out in the garage more!

.

[HWYSTR455]

Originally Posted by Squidward

... It behaves better during decel, and worse during accel.

Maybe try shortening your front springs, drop the front some.

.

[Squidward]

I like the ride height where it's at, so I can't shorten the springs. I'll see how much caster and stability can be achieved by a real shop instead of my did efforts.

Strangely enough, my firebird behaved the same way when the shop set it to pure stock specs. They got it right the second time around.

If I have to get offset shafts, that is what I will have to do. I read that A body frames can sag, which exacerbates the problem of little to no caster and limited camber capability. UCA'S are pretty easy to pull off...

[HWYSTR455]

The sag would move the tops of the control arms inward, impacting camber, so not sure that's an issue.

I know on mine, even though I put the offset shafts on there, it didn't need them.

Once it's on the rack, and if they know what they're doing, they will be able to say or not if it needs the offset shafts.

I never use OE specs, even on unmodified suspensions.

.

[Squidward]

To increase positive caster, you have to add shims to the rear cross shaft bolt, which in turn moves the upper ball joint rearward. It also moves the upper joint slightly inboard at the same time, making camber more negative. When adding the extra caster, I had to remove shims from the front cross shaft bolt to undo the negative camber that was added by shimming the rear bolt. I eventually got to the point where I had minimal shimmage on the front cross shaft bolts, and a pretty good stack on the rears.

I am now at the point where I can no longer remove shims from the front bolt. I could add more to the rear, but my camber will go more negative than the -.25 degrees I have now. I think the offset shafts should help this by restoring more adjustability in the camber (to keep it close to zero), while allowing me to teak in more caster.

Or, do what you said a page or two ago with aftermarket control arms that already have the ball joint locations engineered for the added few degrees of caster.

I am also reading that straight line stability can be affected by toe. Maybe my 1/16" toe in is too little? I might try adding 1/16" more toe in with no other changes to see if stability gets better.

[HWYSTR455]

I'm following now, yeah. Guess some of my slowness was I always use aftermarket control arms. So yes, the offset cross shafts will allow for more 'adjustment'.

Toe will impact straight line tracking, but some can be due to camber change (camber curve) through the travel of the suspension. Once you get to the end of travel, it changes more rapidly, which is why you want the suspension to travel in the 'center' of the range as much as possible.

When the suspension is setup to at-rest be more at the bottom, or top, of the range of travel, you can see where that could become an issue.

Bump steer is also a factor.

Folks here may be able to recommend an alignment spec that works best with a stock type suspension, or maybe call someone, like tech support, maybe Global West or Hotchkis.

If you look at the OE service manual, it should give you frame points/measurements, to determine where in the travel/camber curve you currently 'rest' at, and may give you a clue as to how to compensate with alignment settings.

.

[Holeshot71]

Not sure if anyone else mentioned this. Most cars will tend to pull to the side with the lesser amount of positive caster. You can use this to compensate for the crown in the road by having slightly less pos caster on the drivers side. If you have less positive caster on the pass side you could end up with a pull to that side.

[Squidward]

Good info, thx! One more tool for the toolbox in case I get a pull in a particular direction. I will get a chance to play more on sun/mon/tues. I'll have to juggle that with an a/c job on my truck. Hot months are just around the corner!

[Squidward]

Another 1/16" of toe-in helped. I now have a total of 1/8" toe-in now. Gonna play with this for a while.

[HWYSTR455]

I'm curious where you end up and the results, please post for curiosity's sake.


.

[Squidward]

Her is my current approximate setup, using DIY alignment tools from Fasttrax, etc.:

Camber: -.5 degrees each
Caster: just a slight hair shy of +1 degree.
Toe in: 1/8"

I am pleased that I don't have any left/right pull. It tracks straight, and the steering wheel is very close to being straight. The added toe-in helped eliminate most/all of the twitch from straight during accel, but it is still very responsive. In fact, the steering response is VERY different from the start of this journey. Before I started, the car drove like a marshmallow floating on a cloud. The "after" is a completely different animal!

I will probably need a new rag joint. I still have a little play in the column/intermediate shaft/rag joint, just enough to annoy me because I know it's there.