MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

TR parts and Triumph parts, TR bits, Triumph Car Spares and accessories are available for TR2, TR3, TR3A, TR4, TR4A, TR5, TR6, TR7, TR8, Spitfire and Stag and other TR models are available from British car spares and parts company LBCarCo.

Triumph TR6 - Rear Camber

My rear wheels have what I think is excessive (negative?) camber, the bottom of the wheel sticks out further than the top. This is causing outside feathering of the tire tread. I've tried those aluminum rings that mount beneath the spring and that seems to make matters worse. Is the only fix to mess with the trailing arm bracket mounts?

Rick O.
Rick Orthen

check:

*Rear spring heights (after 30yrs they sag)
*trailing arm bushings (main culprit)
*broken trailing arm brackets (they do crack)


Feathering is usually a result of excees toe in or toe out, NOT camber. Wrong camber results in excessive wear at either edge of the tire.
steven

steven--after i renew the arm bushings, what is the correct bracketry combo to eliminate the toe feather? or is this something for a shop? thanks
rick

Hi Rick,
There's a good little blurb in the Moss Motors catalogue about which bracket combos give what camber settings. That may be useful.
Chris Wiebe

Chris--I have a TOE problem, not camber. Are the shims behind the brackets used to adjust TOE?

Thanks.

Rick O.
Rick Orthen

yes the shims behind the brackets adjust toe in/out, best leave it to a shop that can do a proper 4 wheel alignment.
steven

Rick's description of outer edge feathering suggests too much toe-in. And if it is on both sides of the car , it indicates incorrect setting-up has been done twice!
It is possible to set the toe manually using a metre straight edge placed against the horizontal diameter of the rear tyre ( better still wheel edge). With the car level and the front wheels set straight you can measure the toe with respect to the front tyres by viewing the edge from 20-30 feet behind the car. Simple geometry allows the shim thickness change to be estimated. Each side of the car is done separately. Alternatively a trammel bar can be made from bits on wood, but access is poor for the front of the rear tyres.
I set my rear wheels to parallel, arguing that the non-standard silentbloc trailing arm bushes are so rigid that slight toe-out is not required. Tyre wear is fine.
Incidentally, those trailing arm brackets can fail catasrophically.The sound of a tyre rubbing against the wheel arch is not pleasant, and the handling is not improved either.

Peter Cobbold

Rick's description of outer edge feathering suggests too much toe-in. And if it is on both sides of the car , it indicates incorrect setting-up has been done twice!
It is possible to set the toe manually using a metre straight edge placed against the horizontal diameter of the rear tyre ( better still wheel edge). With the car level and the front wheels set straight you can measure the toe with respect to the front tyres by viewing the edge from 20-30 feet behind the car. Simple geometry allows the shim thickness change to be estimated. Each side of the car is done separately. Alternatively a trammel bar can be made from bits on wood, but access is poor for the front of the rear tyres.
I set my rear wheels to parallel, arguing that the non-standard silentbloc trailing arm bushes are so rigid that slight toe-out is not required. Tyre wear is fine.
Incidentally, those trailing arm brackets can fail catastrophically. The sound of a tyre rubbing against the wheel arch is not pleasant, and the handling is not improved either.

Peter Cobbold

After installing a set of Z rated Pirelli P4000 (the only z rated tire in a 215 sidewall), I had rubber all over the rear quarters. I don't know why the stock TR6 toe settings are so excessive. But After about 2000 miles, I decided to remove some of the rear toe-in by removing plates from the inboard side of the trailing arm and that solved the problem. As far as excessive camber - renew springs, bushings and trailing arm mounting brackets.

Regds

JP,
73 TR6
John Parfitt

John P--Do you happen to remember how many shims you removed from each inboard side? Thanks.

Rick O.
Rick Orthen

I removed two shims from each inboard mounting bracket. Aligment remained good since removed same from each side. That change corrected the problem. Still seems to go around corners well and have run it up to about 100 mph without any vibration. Seems like a simple fix.

JP
73 TR6
Calgary, Canada
John Parfitt

JP--Thanks for the shim info. I too have rubber shavings on my rear quarter, but just the LEFT side. Just do the shim removal on the left then?

Thanks.

Rick O.
Rick Orthen

Related to the rear trailing arms, I am replacing a lot of the rubber suspension parts on my car and have noticed what appear to be rubber spacers/insulators that fit between the trailing brackets and the trailing arms themselves. Are these separate parts from the actual trailing arm bushings? If so, I do not see them represented on any of the rear suspension parts drawings in the Moss, Victoria British or TRF catalogs.

I've not removed the rear trailing arms to see exactly how they are fitted but I assume the bolt that goes through the bush and the bracket also goes through these rubber spacers/insulators.

Anyone know what they're called and where to get them. Moss number?

Thanks.
scott

Scott,

The bushings extend beyond the edge of the openings in the trailing arms. Sounds like what you are describing is in line with the whole bolt/bushing/bracket/trailing arm holes, so you're just seeing that part of the bushings.
SteveP

Rick -

Excessive toe on one side.... well, you can experiment and if the alignment goes bad, just undo what you did. Keep good notes. The other thing I did was to replace all the bushings with the Prothane poly bushings in the rear trailing arms and that really transformed the handling.
John Parfitt

This thread was discussed between 10/05/2002 and 17/06/2002

Triumph TR6 index