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Triumph TR6 - Wheel Alignment Specifications

I'm planning on having a wheel alignment done this year and the shop I'v spoken with say they need the specifications.

I'v searched the archives and googled it to no avail.

Anyone out there have the specs for toe-in, camber, castor etc...

Thanks in advance.

John Parfitt
John Parfitt

Front, unladen:

Camber +1/4 +/- 1 (in degrees)

Castor 2 3/4 +/- 1 (in degrees, note this is not adjustable unless you have changed over to Jag XJ upper ball joints and the associated shims. This changeover requires that upper arm ball joint bolt holes be enlarged and proper bolts and nuts fitted.)

Toe In 1/16 - 1/18

for laden all is same except castor which is -1/4 +/- 1/2

Rear,

Camber +1 to -1/4 degrees, adjust by bracket selection and notch orientation or by shimming between spring and spring pads/seats

Toe In 0 to -1/16, adjust by altering shim pack between trailing arm bracket and frame member

It is very important to make adjustment changes and then drive the car both forward and reverse to settle the suspension before taking the next set of measurements.

SteveP

For the record, on someone's advice from the BBS, I went and installed the Goodpart trailing arm brackets. Amazing. They were easy to install and adjusting the camber until I got it right was simple and quick. Just one note, where I needed more than 2 shims, the bolts that came with the brackets were too short so I retained the originals.

If you're shop is going to adjust your rear camber without these brackets, you'll both be in for a rude experience.
Mati Holland

I just had My 75 done friday. I went to the local goodyear, and the computer in the alignment shop had the spec. I also wrote down the specs from a shop manual just in case. He squared it up pretty well and we even made a slight adjustment for my weight (250)lbs. Car drives great. I have a question though about a weird thing that happens during a hard acceleration. Sometimes when I let off to shift up, the back end seems to sqirm a bit and the carjerks to the right. My first thought was a motor mount or tranny mount. Any ideas or experience?
Mike
S.M. Stephano

I had completely forgotten about about the Good parts trailing arm brackets. The really sad part about forgetting about them is that I have installed a set on my car.

Mati is correct about the bracket mount bolt length warning. Richard Good supplies these with SAE hardware which is nominally sized at 1/4" length intervals. The factory bolts were sized at 1/8" length intervals and are, yes you guessed it, indeed longer so keep them for use. I am somewhat particular about the hardware I use and swapped it all out for AN hardware. I was more concerned with the large trailing arm pivot bolts as supplied would put the threads in shear through the floating block on the Good Parts brackets. I would have to go back to my notes, but seem to recall that I used AN7-40A (7/16" with a 3 7/16" grip length) bolts for my installation on the trailing arm pivots.
SteveP

Mike
"Sometimes when I let off to shift up, the back end seems to squirm a bit and the carjerks to the right"

Have you checked the dif mounts for cracks..especially the right front one.
But then if the "tracking" of the car actually moves then it could be in the trailing arm (moving). Lift the rear of the car up on the frame and see if you can move either tyre forwards or backwards.
Sound serious and should be looked at pronto.


"....and we even made a slight adjustment for my weight (250)lbs."
That is a lot of weight to loose Mike:)
OK kiddin' aside, what did you do to loose 250 pounds...on the car?

Rick C
Rick Crawford

"OK kiddin' aside, what did you do to loose 250 pounds...on the car?"

Well the classic response would be I sent her in for a coke and then drove off....No the truth is, that is my weight. He adjusted the car with the computor/laser stuff and then set the car down on the rack with me in it and did a little by eye and feel adjustments. The car tracks and handles great. I did a full inspection of the differental and all assemblies aft. I did not look at the motor or tranny mounts.
Mike
S.M. Stephano

Thanks for the responses much appreciated. Now here is another question re the rear suspension shims.

I'v seen many times a shim pack of four on the inside and two on the outside of the rear trailing arm.

That example gives a net difference of 2 shims between the inside and outside.

Why not just use two shims on the inside and none on the outside to provide the same configuration of a net difference of two shims.

I'd guess that avoiding the use of shims would be a good thing. Nothing to rust out. More solid mounting platform etc.

John Parfitt
John Parfitt

Mike what you are decribing is classic torque steer.
I experience it everytime I upshift on hard accelleration, but then I've got alittle more ft.lbs
of torque than most TR's. Have you modifided the engine? If it is stock then you could have some serious
frame and or diff. hanger weaknesses that are causing your jump to the right.
Christopher Trace

John - one of your countrymen has posted this very useful information for setting up the rear trailing arm standard brackets
http://members.visi.net/~kohout/trailarm.html

BTW, I also found better response to the standard oversteer by increasing the front wheel camber to 1.5° negative.

The adjustments should be done with a full tank of fuel (for the weight). I was interested to see when I had mine done that the driver's side door was left fully open. It was done to help emulate the weight of the driver.

R
Roger H

Roger,

That is an excellent article dealing with rear trailing arm camber adjustments.

However, it doesn't answer my question about the use of shims for toe-in adjustment. I was wondering why some people use a 4 and 2 shim combo instead of a 2 and 0 combo.

JP
John Parfitt

John
The additional shims are most likely there to bring the wheelbase to the 88" factory spec.
Mike
mike crane

Give that man a cigar! In addition to adjusting toe, the shims were also used to make sure that the wheelbase met specs and matched side to side.

Now quick, name a car that was intentionally produced with ~3" difference in wheelbase side to side and why it was done that way.......
SteveP

Steve,
The Renault "LeCar" had a longer wheelbase on the passenger side to accomodate a longer door. This allowed better access to the rear seat.

Mark
Mark Riddle

I had completely forgotten about that one. What I had in mind was the Renault R16. They used torsion bars on the rear that ran the full width of the car. The wheelbase was offset to accommodate the torsion bars.
SteveP

This thread was discussed between 09/04/2005 and 14/04/2005

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