Serious camber problem after fitting coilovers,pics included

[joe2612]

Hi All,

Just spent the weekend fitting some coilovers to my Gti


, all went on okay Except the left front wheel has horrendous positive camber i.e the top of the wheel is much further inwards than the bottom.

Right wheel: all okay


Left wheel: a different story, see how it bends in at the top comapred to the right one








This causes the tire to rub against the spring. ive tried adjusting the ride height, i knew the camber would be out after fitting the coilies but surely not this far out?! and it's only on one wheel! The car is undrivable as a result.


If you guys can think of anything i could try or what i may have cocked up when putting them on then i'd be very grateful.

[Tim_GTi]

That's negative camber, not positive. It happens when you lower your car. To decrease it though, take the wheel and disconnect the strut from the hub, grab the disc brake and pull it straight. This will help a little. You'll still need to get it booked in for Camber and Tracking though.

[joe2612]

That's negative camber, not positive. It happens when you lower your car. To decrease it though, take the wheel and disconnect the strut from the hub, grab the disc brake and pull it straight. This will help a little. You'll still need to get it booked in for Camber and Tracking though.

cheers for the quick reply Tim, ill give it a go tommorow. But is there any reason why its only one wheel thats severely negativly cambered?

[Tim_GTi]

cheers for the quick reply Tim, ill give it a go tommorow. But is there any reason why its only one wheel thats severely negativly cambered?

Yeh when your camber adjustment lies in the bolts that connect the strut to the hub, when you fitted the coilovers you probably connected them whilst the hub was at a slant. Happens all the time, yours must have been quite an extreme circumstance however.

[wheelmanwayne]

jack the car up- undo the strut bolts slightly then pull the top of the wheel out towards the arch! redo the bolts then take it to your local garage to get the track toe and camber set. at least then you can get to the garage without doing too much damage to your tyres

[mwarner87]

i have a similar problem to this,

will try first un-doing the front bolts and pulling the hub out and re-tightening the bolts

if this fails, what else can you do?

[Bepe]

by doing the above is the only way to adjust your camber matey!

[tegwin]

by doing the above is the only way to adjust your camber matey!

Not quite... If you still cant get enough camber the other way of doing it is to fabricate/fit some adjustable top mounts, as fitted to a lot of the jap stuff...

But IMHO its easier to just run the car a little higher!

[Bepe]

well yes i no you can but obviously jsut stating on the Standard setup there is nothing more you can do

[Tim_GTi]

I would've thought if someone made slightly shorter bottom arms this would help?

[Bepe]

i would of thought making some kind of camber shim but make it so it doesnt give you / camber and gives you | camber

[Tim_GTi]

i would of thought making some kind of camber shim but make it so it doesnt give you / camber and gives you | camber

Camber shims do, do that as far as I'm aware? They can give you a small percentage of positive and negative camber?

I've never looked into them though as I need that extra bit of tuck the slightly negative camber gives.

[Pleb]

I was told by a VW mechanic to use camber bolts which are basically thinner strut bolts to allow for more adjustment. Never looked into them though as my camber isnt too bad.

[tegwin]

I was told by a VW mechanic to use camber bolts which are basically thinner strut bolts to allow for more adjustment. Never looked into them though as my camber isnt too bad.

Really? Thats very very scary advice... The bolts have to be done up to a pretty high torque given the imense sheer load they have to cope with... if you put smaller bolts on they wont withstand the same amoung of sheer and may snap and fall out..... if that happens you can wave goodby to the road and say hello big tree!

[Pleb]

I was told by a VW mechanic to use camber bolts which are basically thinner strut bolts to allow for more adjustment. Never looked into them though as my camber isnt too bad.

Really? Thats very very scary advice... The bolts have to be done up to a pretty high torque given the imense sheer load they have to cope with... if you put smaller bolts on they wont withstand the same amoung of sheer and may snap and fall out..... if that happens you can wave goodby to the road and say hello big tree!

Yeah you cant get just any old bolts from B&Q! I havent researched them properly since I dont really need them but it sounded like they are available from tuning/motorsport shops. Just gotta make sure they are good quality high tensile ones. Bear in mind the standard VW ones will have massive saftey tolerances so personally, I wouldn't have a problem using slightly thinner ones.