UCA shims came out while driving

[abbey castro]

I always use loctite and torque suspension and brake component bolts. I had a caliper bracket bolt that fell of lucky that one bolt didn't come off and held the caliper in place, but made a circular scratch inside the wheel. I must have not loctite or torqued it. Decided to use a dab of paint on the head to visually see if it has broken loose. I got the stuff on amuson (sp on purpose) .

 

[69hurstolds]

NEVER on a street car should one desire the slightest iota of positive camber. There are far more effective ways to induce understeer that don't destroy tires. I just wonder why they make the arms this way? Unless it's for the roundy round crowd who'd want some on the inner tire?

I was thinking about the roundy rounds when I mentioned it. I didn't mean you need positive camber on the streets. I should have clarified. Plus, some cars frames sag where you may need a bit more positive adjustability just to keep it in negative specs, if that makes any sense.

However, there are some specs of zero camber, +/- 1/2 degree, out there that with the tolerance actually allowed a teeny amount of positive camber for the left front. 200 years ago, when I was in alignment school, we did several hands-on alignments on various cars in the school's fleet for practical tests and I got one of them. I can't recall off hand which car that was on, or could have been a truck, but that was years ago. I found it kind of weird. There are some old-school alignment shops that insist on fudging a bit of positive camber on the left front anyway even if the specs didn't allow it due to the crowning of the roads, but I personally don't subscribe to it. Those guys are likely dead now. The new computer graphics shows if it's dead nuts or not.

 

[melloelky]

i know little about alignments but I'm running umi wall to wall up front(tall bj's uppers/lowers) and aligned it according to the included specs,the end result was a pile of shims.i've had people make comments and tell me it's all kinds of wrong(everyone's an expert on someone else's car) but i've have had zero tire wear over the years and i don't p*ssy foot around so don't let the pile of shims scare you.

 

[69hurstolds]

i know little about alignments but I'm running umi wall to wall up front(tall bj's uppers/lowers) and aligned it according to the included specs,the end result was a pile of shims.i've had people make comments and tell me it's all kinds of wrong(everyone's an expert on someone else's car) but i've have had zero tire wear over the years and i don't p*ssy foot around so don't let the pile of shims scare you.

You're right, as long as the bolts are torqued properly, you shouldn't have to worry too much about a few more shims. Within reason, obviously. You probably don't want a 6 inch bolt with 4 inches of shims in there. It's just that it usually didn't take that many in my experience unless the frame or something else was bent. Again, I have no experience with the tubular kind. When you have frame sag, they usually make those additional positive camber "problem solver" cross shafts so you don't run out of adjustment room.

I remember a 442 I had once that had ZERO front shims with 3 rear shims on the right front. Something was off with that a little, because normally you have a shim or two difference front to back and hardly ever have zero shim situations unless you have some severe frame sag. It drove straight and it was within specs on caster/camber, so I didn't worry about it, but it seemed a bit odd to me.

 

[403Olds]

What did you make your spacers out of? I was thinking about that last night on the way home.

I made them out of a piece of round stock. You could also take a 1" bolt, cut it at 1/2" and drill a hole in the center.

 

[bracketchev1221]

Glad it wasn't worse. When I put tubulars on mine, I had to use a stack of shims. I ended up making solid spacers, then fine tuning it with shims, I wasn't comfortable with the amount of slotted shims I needed to get my alignment where it needed to be.

This is what I was thinking use a solid spacer and fine tune it.