Anyone set their own rear, camber and toe ?

I've had just the lower struts in my R53 for a while now. I did not realize that lessening the camber from the stock -2.5° to -.75° would screw with the toe.adjustment.
I take the car to a reputable shop to have the suspension aligned (laser tools), toe settings. They are willing to not mess with the front and rear camber settings.
BUT, when done, the guy tells me that he had to readjust the camber setting. I ask what he meant. He just said the same thing in a different way, leaving me not sure of what and why.

So, I take the car to another shop that uses the OLD way of doing things. With a tape. I let the owners know to leave the camber alone. They say fine. With that said, I end up with almost 1/8" of toe "out" in the rear and the car is all bound up.

I get under the car and just study. Ok, I see that to do things correctly, to change the camber, I also need to reset the toe. So...I buy a second set of struts. I adjust them to just a little longer than the toe difference with the stock struts.
I notice...the camber has gone into a "positive" angle. Again, studying some more, I see that BOTH struts need to be adjusted at the same time to get BOTH...camber and the proper toe setting.

Has anyone used the string method of setting their toe adjustments ?
And does anyone have any hints on the method of doing the rear...so that I don't try to reinvent the wheel doing it ?

Mike

 

I set rear camber and toe on my MINI with the string method if I want to get a good 4 wheel alignment.
I quick check front and back with a tape measure and a Carpenter Square with level, and a steel rule.
I don't adjust front camber (except for pulling out the locating pin and shifting the upper strut mount a little,
but if you have camber plates, you can do that too).
Front toe is easy to adjust with a tape measure if you go upthe same distance on both sides of the tire front and back,
and don't have seized tie rod adjustment threads.
If your surface isn't completely flat, then measuring with the car facing one way, then the other way, then averaging works well.
I don't have aftermarket control arms and am not lowered, so I just use the eccentric bolts on the oem rear control arms to fine tune camber, then
adjust toe by loosening the 3 bolts that hold the trailing bar and shifting it.
This method is a little hit and miss, but with a few tries, you can get it right on target.
I use the eccentric socket tool to make this easier, but it's not essential.
If you make a significant change in the toe, then you have to recheck and adjust camber slightly again, then toe again as one affects the other.
With some patience, basic geometry knowledge, and persistence you can get pretty darn accurate readings and settings at curbside or any convenient, flat and fairly level surface.

Once, I found out that if the centering ring is put in crooked by the mechanics who took the wheel off to do your state inspection, you will go back and forth with shifting toe and camber
values MANY times until you figure out the wheel is not lying flat on the hub and set it straight!

 

I've got adjustable plates in the front, so not too much problem there. I now have all four struts in the back.

After losing count of...adjust, check, adjust, check, 10 trips, probably did twice that, I finally got the left side close. I did the trailing arm bracket for a touchup for the toe. I just did an eyeball amount movement, and tightened.
Then the right side. It was very close right away.
I took the car out for a quick trip around the block, all felt MUCH better than the adjustment from the second location. Doesn't feel bound up as it did pryor to my doing the adjustment the last two days.

Now that I have an idea how everything works together, I'm gonna start all over in the back and get the numbers as close as I can with the string method, then I'll go to the front.

cristo -
Thanks for the hints. Like you sort of say, just do it..!
The string is obviously not as close as a laser, but I know that I'm now MUCH closer than from the second shops work, and I'm not done yet.

Mike

 

The difference between a taut string
and a slightly divergent focused beam of
coherent light is pretty small.

 

Well, after many, many iterations of -
Measure, adjust, up off the ground - measure, adjust, up off the ground (laying on the ground to adjust).
It's finally done, and drives better than the "two" shops that I took it to, to do the same job ($100 each time). I mistakenly thought that the "experts" would do the work...properly..! WRONG.
I did both the front and rear.

One shop, the car felt so bound up, it really wasn't happy driving down a flat straight road.
All is good now, the car drives better than it has since I bought it.

Laser wise, if the equipment was quality stuff, a laser isn't going to spread noticeably in short distance of a cars length. Cheap lasers, yea, agreed. They apparently just need more practice..!
The second place did the work 1960 style. White line painted on the tread, measure... Don't know how THAT got screwed up..! Well, maybe I do, but...

Mike

P.s. - That camber was also labor intensive, but not a difficult thing to do.

 

Alignment is a specialist job, make no mistake. You need people who know what they are doing and even better, are able to adjust the car how the owner wants it.

In the Netherlands, its no different. There are a lot of generic shops who do alignment, but only a few specialists who are able to do it correctly/according to the wishes of the owner.

 

Funny how we can do alignment
ourselves with simple equipment
and do a better job than many if
not most of shops that “do alignment”.
I’ve been saying this for over half my life.

 

I see you live in SoCal. I’ve taken my R53 to Mark at https://mmsautosport.com/ He really knows what he’s doing, not only can he align your ride, he specializes in Mini Coopers and BMW’s. You won’t be disappointed with the results.

 

jk -

Thanks for the shop address. I'll keep them in mind.

Doing alignments isn't Rocket Science, in the least. About 30 years ago, I got screwed by a shop. I gave them numbers that I wanted them to adjust to. I knew as soon as I drove into the street, that they didn't do what I asked. So I set out to buy the required tools and do it myself.

Fast forward to my Mini, and the four wheel alignment. My two wheel adjust tools would not work on the Mini. I did buy a digital (x.xx) camber gauge. But measuring toe with a string...didn't seem right. After two shops screwing up (one badly), I figured I couldn't do any worse, and I would work it until I got it...right..!
So, that's the short list of how it all happened.

Mike