My understanding is that factory live axles usually have a bit of camber built into them (very little)and I am not sure about toe. When we weld the brackets to the back of the axle I am assuming that we will shrink the back of the axle tube and cause some toe out.and maybe even screwup what ever neg camber may have been built in.
Has anyone welded a bead on the front side or top side of the axle to try and adjust this a bit.
Dale

I'd expect them to be designed for absolute zero camber and toe or esle the half shaft splines woyld have to be stirring around in the diff pinions. That can't be right! I have no verifiable dat one way or another so am prepared for a crescendo of rebuttals...
Oh yeah - for camber & toe settings remember the wheel flange is part of the half shaft so everything pivots round the diff pinion splines.
cheers

Bob

I don't know about production axles being deliberately set with neagtive camber, but after a few years use many certainly dont have the wheels pointing where they started out! The halfshaft splines will take a surprising amount of misalignment!

You are quite right Dale, that it is one downside of the "book" trailing arm brackets that they are welded only at the front of the axle.

The Mk2 escort rally prep book, published by Ford for many years, shows the brackets used on the works Ford escort rally cars (and all gp 4 cars built since) and these are "diamond" shaped brackets, with a big hole in the middle for the axle tube and small holes top and bottom for the bolts. You use 4 of these, with steel strip welded between each pair. normally you split them about the big hole to get them around the axle.

The big plus of these is that they are welded all the way around, so the axle doesn't get pulled by the weld in any one direction.

I read ages ago about some rally teams running weld on the axle casing to actually give toe in. It doesn't sound like a very exact science though.

quote:

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Originally posted by NS Dev
I don't know about production axles being deliberately set with neagtive camber, but after a few years use many certainly dont have the wheels pointing where they started out! The halfshaft splines will take a surprising amount of misalignment!

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Speaking to darren of GTS tuning a while back, he advocated shimming the hub carrier onto the de dion tube to adjust camber and toe. that's with sierra driveshafts with CV joints, though.

And hello everyone, I'm not dead, and not given up on the car..

Good to see you back blueshift.

Car come on at all?

Cheers,
James

hi james

as for car progress, not really in the last 6 months, still not yet rolling chassis

I moved from st albans and the car is still there. need to get my finger out and sort the garage here (at my dad's), and fix my friend's van, so I can move the locost. Things are, slowly, progressing towards that though.