> I just installed a set of uprated from springs I bought 4 years ago
>from British Parts NW
>The problem is that the car seems to sit very nose-high now. I'd guess
>that the tire-fender gap in the front is easily twice that in the rear, which
>seems strange.
[ this is a '70 TR6]
Ok, I have the car back from the alignment shop, and put about 20 miles
on it. I rough-measured the gaps on all 4 wheels, and this is what I get:
(tire - fender lip clearance)
2" 2-2.5" (front)
1" 1.5-2" (rear)
Looks like the left-rear is sagging, again. Or perhaps some strange
frame warp? The fronts are still sitting higher than the rears, but it's not
as pronounced on the passenger side. I had thought that the driver-side lean
was caused by a sagging old front spring.
The front is mega-stiff now. I checked the Bentley manual and the
front springs are supposed to have a shorter free-length than the rears, and
1 less turn as well, so I guess the old springs were in the correct places.
Another question: the driver's side had only .9 degrees of caster,
while the right side had 3.75 or so. Spec is 2.75 +-1, so one is way under,
and the other is riding the high end. The shop was quite suprised it didn't
pull. Also interesting is that the side with .9 is the "good" side; the
other side hit a curb hard (the DPO). Caster isn't adjustable on TR6's,
so how do I correct it? Especially as that's the good side - freshly (in
miles) rebuilt and never damaged that I know of. There's a .5" setback from
one side to the other, though, so the impact and/or repairs by the PO did do
some nastiness.
Also, what will such out-of-spec and mismatched caster cause to
happen? There's no pulling, steering seems to center ok. High speed shimmy
seems gone now (it was tires or the .8 inches of toe-in I had).
They refused to touch the rear suspension alignment. The computer
shows .9 degree positive camber on the left-rear, toe .44, and .8 negative
on the right-rear, toe .43 (total rear toe, .86 versus nominal .12). Nominal
camber is 1 degree negative. Should I leave it alone or is that too much
toe-in to ignore? I suspect I can get away with ignoring the left-side
camber - not to mention it isn't obvious how to change it - the shims would
change toe, not camber. It could be a result of a bad spring there (that
corner is sagging), or frame warpage, though none's obvious.
One more note for TR owners: the little springs that go under the
wheel-centers ARE available from TRF, though most of the catalogs don't
show them (at least not in the obvious places). I needed some but didn't
know the numbers, and the Level I sales guy couldn't find it at first, but
on the third and last try found it.
--
Randell Jesup
Randell.Jesup@scala.com
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