Rear Camber adjustment...

[Jack Roberta]

Can anyone supply simple instructions for setting and measuring the rear camber?

Thanks
Jack

[Cliff Murray]

It is best explained in the factory manual. You can get an angle guage at Home Depot to measure the trailing arm setting. Car must be level front to back and should also be level side to side while you take your readings. Setting the angle is not difficult but requires trial and error and therefore patience. Both rear trailing arms MUST be extremely close to the same setting unless you want VERY odd handling. About 1 degree less droop than spec should make handling better but not hurt the ride. If you lower the car a lot, you better like a HARSH ride! Follow up by setting the front slightly lower than the rear when the car is viewed from the side while on its wheels.

[Aongus Mac Cana]

On my favourite modified Beetle many years ago, I discovered accidentally that fitting wider wheels (6" v standard 4") - presumably by lengthening the effective swing axle length gave me a noticable amount of de-camber. If you happen to have some wider wheels lying around it might be worth a try.

[Mike Smith]

Early Warning

If you de-camber the car to the extreme you will heat up the Spade Ends on the Drive Shafts and destroy them

A slight de-camber is OK but remember - The Factory `generally` knew what they were doing

Buy a copy of `Porsche Tech. Manual` by Elfrink it covers many of the techinical questions that get asked on Talk Forums

Add to that The Drivers Handbook and a Copy of The Restorers Guide by Dr. Brett and you will have most of the bases covered

[Jerry Haussler]

Jack;
i just went through this. the original intent was "simply" to replace the torsion bar donuts. it was quite a learning experience. i may have some tips for you depending on whether or not you've already had the main components of the system disassembled at some point. also, are you working on a C model or earlier ?
best
jerry

[S.J. Szabo]

Sadly, there is no short-form answer. The Factory describes the correct proceedure, but can only be considered to be a general outline. However, the determined (and patient) can still achieve pretty good results using simple materials and a bit of ingenuity. What follows is by no means authoratative, but it works for me.

Some of the key considerations for real-world home-grown execution are:

1. Leveling the tub front to rear and side to side is absolutly essential. A long and reliably straight steel angle can be substuted for a giant spirit level. Bonus points for access to some kind of laser device.

2. Unless new, the torsion bars will not be of identical properties. On 50 yr. old cars, this will probably require slightly different settings from side to side to achieve a level ride height. One can establish any such difference by taking initial measurements at the trailing arm (with axles detatched) at full drop. Then, using a jack, lift each arm (slowly) until it just begins to lift that corner off the jackstand (a piece of paper placed between support and tub makes a good gauge) and measure the angle. Any difference between sides reveals a difference in torque values. Jigger the inner and outer tooth settings until the lift angles match side to side. Bolt it all up, set it down and check for level and desired camber. Repeat as required.

3. The kind of levels/angle meters commonly available are far from adaquate for the task, as you will need to be able to descern readings with at least 1/4 degree accuracy. However, one can (with the aid of a trusty computer) replicate the Factory protractor for this purpose. I did a very servicable one with a 6" sweep radius (glued to sturdy chipboard) that utilized a monofiliment line with a weight (a metric nut of course) on the end as an indicator for fairly accurate readings.

4. Allow plenty of time and take a double (no, triple) dose of patience pills.

[Jeffrey Fellman]

I had pretty good luck over the years by finding a truly level poured
concrete area [one of the hardesr parts]. This will almost certainly need to
be the interior of a large building as almost all roads, parking areas,
driveways etc by design will have significant grades. You can calculate
around the grade but it is a pain. Making the changes in camber and ride
height is always a bit of trouble but placing a carpenters level on the
thresholds and using a camber gauge from Racers Wholesale you can get the
car dead square and level with the camber you desire pretty darn accurately.
A small tip many for get is to roll and jounce the car to get a good settled
height. Do not be surprised if there is a fair bit of resistance on a new
rebuild from all the new bushings everywhere. Try this as an experiment:
push the car down real hard and see what setting you get as it returns to
"level" then lift the car by hand with a friend or two front or rear and see
what version of "level" you get. Not so easy eh?
----- Original Message -----
From: "S.J. Szabo" <ensys@michiana.org>
To: <356talk@356registry.com>
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 10:29 AM
Subject: [356Talk] Rear Camber adjustment...

Sadly, there is no short-form answer. The Factory describes the correct
proceedure, but can only be considered to be a general outline. However,
the determined (and patient) can still achieve pretty good results using
simple materials and a bit of ingenuity. What follows is by no means
authoratative, but it works for me.

Some of the key considerations for real-world home-grown execution are:

1. Leveling the tub front to rear and side to side is absolutly essential.
A long and reliably straight steel angle can be substuted for a giant
spirit level. Bonus points for access to some kind of laser device.

2. Unless new, the torsion bars will not be of identical properties. On 50
yr. old cars, this will probably require slightly different settings from
side to side to achieve a level ride height. One can establish any such
difference by taking initial measurements at the trailing arm (with axles
detatched) at full drop. Then, using a jack, lift each arm (slowly) until
it just begins to lift that corner off the jackstand (a piece of paper
placed between support and tub makes a good gauge) and measure the angle.
Any difference between sides reveals a difference in torque values. Jigger
the inner and outer tooth settings until the lift angles match side to
side. Bolt it all up, set it down and check for level and desired camber.
Repeat as required.

3. The kind of levels/angle meters commonly available are far from
adaquate for the task, as you will need to be able to descern readings
with at least 1/4 degree accuracy. However, one can (with the aid of a
trusty computer) replicate the Factory protractor for this purpose. I did
a very servicable one with a 6" sweep radius (glued to sturdy chipboard)
that utilized a monofiliment line with a weight (a metric nut of course)
on the end as an indicator for fairly accurate readings.

4. Allow plenty of time and take a double (no, triple) dose of patience
pills.

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[Rink Reinking]

[quote]3. The kind of levels/angle meters commonly available are far from adaquate for the task, as you will need to be able to descern readings with at least 1/4 degree accuracy. [/quote]

No, sorry that is not correct. The difference in the inner and outer splines confine the rotation possibilities to a value that is just shy of 1 degree. Your goal is to set both side to the same setting. You can only do that to within that value. Having a gage that reads to +/- 0.0001 degrees would not help.

[Jeffrey Fellman]

the Halibrand gauge from Racers Wholesale measures the camber, not the swing
arm angle. They are very accurate once zeroed. The final objective is to get
the camber correct regardless of the angle of the axle plate. What I want at
the end of the process is a car with a little negative camber, a little toe
in, a centered steering box, sitting dead square front to back and side to
side. A carpenters level, a camber gauge, a good tape measure and some level
ground is all the measuring equipment you need. Now it comes down to having
the patience to deal with the relatively difficult adjustment proceedures
that come with the 356.
----- Original Message -----





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[Guest]

To add a few tips, we use an electronic level that you can buy at
most hardware stores and gives you readings to 1/10 of a degree. The
bars are made in left and right forms and are marked as such, give a
slight upward push on the trailing arm to remove any spline play and
since the vernier effect of the spline arangement give you adjustments
in about 1/2 degree steps you should give the drivers side the higher
setting. One degree of change is about 5-6 mm height change at the axle.

Alan

S.J. Szabo wrote:

Sadly, there is no short-form answer. The Factory describes the
correct proceedure, but can only be considered to be a general
outline. However, the determined (and patient) can still achieve
pretty good results using simple materials and a bit of ingenuity.
What follows is by no means authoratative, but it works for me.

Some of the key considerations for real-world home-grown execution are:

1. Leveling the tub front to rear and side to side is absolutly
essential. A long and reliably straight steel angle can be substuted
for a giant spirit level. Bonus points for access to some kind of
laser device.

2. Unless new, the torsion bars will not be of identical properties.
On 50 yr. old cars, this will probably require slightly different
settings from side to side to achieve a level ride height. One can
establish any such difference by taking initial measurements at the
trailing arm (with axles detatched) at full drop. Then, using a jack,
lift each arm (slowly) until it just begins to lift that corner off
the jackstand (a piece of paper placed between support and tub makes a
good gauge) and measure the angle. Any difference between sides
reveals a difference in torque values. Jigger the inner and outer
tooth settings until the lift angles match side to side. Bolt it all
up, set it down and check for level and desired camber. Repeat as
required.

3. The kind of levels/angle meters commonly available are far from
adaquate for the task, as you will need to be able to descern readings
with at least 1/4 degree accuracy. However, one can (with the aid of a
trusty computer) replicate the Factory protractor for this purpose. I
did a very servicable one with a 6" sweep radius (glued to sturdy
chipboard) that utilized a monofiliment line with a weight (a metric
nut of course) on the end as an indicator for fairly accurate readings.

4. Allow plenty of time and take a double (no, triple) dose of
patience pills.




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[S.J. Szabo]

A couple of additional observations:

It doesn't matter if you do it on a hill as long as you get the tub level.

Performing this operation with a camber guage will work as long as you enjoy taking the axle/trailing arm ass'y apart, jacking down to check result, jacking up and doing it all over again thru several iterations till you guess it right. I call this technique "The Masochist's Delight".

"slightly less than 1 deg." is, as I recall, 3/4 deg., requiring measurement, that you can read reliably, accurate to at least 1/4 deg., however you measure it. +/_ 0.0001" would be even better. Or, you can guess.

Once again, unless you are starting with new bars, etc. your final settings are likely to be slightly different from one side to another. And don't forget that the complete car is not perfectly balanced side to side. The purist/wealthy/lucky will perform this operation aided by corner scales.

The fact is that bars with any use on them will also likely exhibit slightly different rates of torsional resistance that simply taking up the spline slack will not reveal. This is the reason for lifting the arm to an equal lift load on either side and replicates the bar's behavior as it bears the car's load. This lifting technique reduces the number of iterations required to compensate for bars of differing rates and cars of slightly different weights side to side.