Un-lowering! Crazy Camber!

[Bambino126]

My cars previous owner lived out in the countryside in an area with lots of great twisty B roads and loved zooming around with his lowered suspension to take advantage of it. Whereas where I live on the outskirts of London its just a mass of big pot holes and big speed humps and if you ever get to 30mph you've done well. The suspension drives me mad being so hard and low - a typical road hump taken at 10 mph results in you being catapulted up, bash your head on the ceiling and then you crash down and break the seat spring! After a couple of miles you're dying to get out.
The front leaf spring rests permanently right down on the bump stops with the shocks bottomed out, and at the back the coil springs have been cut right down. I finally had enough of it and took the decision to convert the car back to its standard original setup.

I bought a brand new standard leaf spring, 2 new standard rear coil springs, and 4 new standard shock absorbers.

I fitted the whole kit at the weekend and whilst I'm pleased to report that the ride quality is "magic carpet" like by comparison, the car now has a goofy amount of positive camber. The wheels literally stick out the top of the wheel arches like big ears - worse at the rear.

I have the old Gunson camber gauge which I quickly attached this morning - I'm getting around 2 degrees of positive camber on the front wheels, and greater than 3 degrees of positive camber on the rears. The gauge only reads up to a maximum of 3 degrees pos/neg so can't see what the rears actually are, but more than 3.

Whilst I expect they'll settle down a bit when I've done some miles and the springs bed in, what should they be set at? And how do you adjust them? I'm more worried about the rears - surely it can't be good for the tyre to lean over at an extreme angle?
Your thoughts
Thanks

[Dom.kelltt]

Have a look if the previous owner added washers in where there was non originally, ape time when people lower them they add washers in to minimise the neg camber, this maybe pushing you way over into positive territories

Dom


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[Gadge]

Doms right the front camber goes crazy when you lower them. When you lower the front of a 126 just slightly the camber tends to stick out at the top (positive) but if you drastically lower the car it goes the other way - inwards (negative). Like Dom said there's shims behind the top arms that can be inserted or removed to move the arm in or out depending on which way you want to go. I flipped a leaf on mine as well as fitting aircooled rear shocks which are shorter and the tops of the wheels disappeared into the wheel arches and it was hirendous a stiffer lower one was a much better alternative and was the only way to sort it.

The rears are not so simple. Did you buy aircooled rear springs? I did thinking they were the same as the BIS  and when I fitted them the back end was way up in the air. I removed them and compared them to the old BIS springs and found them taller by one whole coil. I can only say that perhaps the aircooled cars were heavier at the back than the bis. As the old ones were rusted badly I decided that I would cut one coil out of the new ones and see how it would look and in the end it sat just right so my advice would be either source some BIS ones or cut one coil out of the new ones.

[Bambino126]

Ok I've sussed out how to adjust the front camber - by adding/removing shims from the upper arm, but how can you adjust the rear camber? Obviously if somebody has inserted washers where they shouldnt go then remove them....
Gadge - yes the springs I just bought did have 1 more coil that the ones I took out - I assumed that this meant that the car had previously been lowered by sombody cutting 1 coil off a standard spring. The new springs didn't say they were for an aircooled car - just advertised as "Fiat 126 all models". I got it from Axel Gerstl.   Ricambio's springs are the same - they just say "all models"

I'm surprised to find that the Bis manual states that you're actual suposed to have 3 degrees positive camber on the rear, and 1.66 positive camber on the front.

I thought negative would have been better for grip? Or just neutral (0 degrees) to minimise tyre wear? I can only think that positive camber is sugested to give it light steering as its a city car and doesnt have power steering?

[Gadge]

Unfourtunaltyly there's no adjustment as such for the rear as its a swinging axel so any movement in height effects the camber. They always did have some positive camber - especially at the back but it maybe more as the new shocks may need to settle in a bit.

[1973/126]

 You also have to remember these cars were actually designed to take passengers and luggage. It would surely sit a bit different if it was fully loaded.
 You might be able to get away with couple of shims/washers under the bottom mounting bolts of the rear hub to change the camber a bit.
 The camber always looks worse on these because of the skinny tyres.
 

[Bambino126]

Right - so loaded up with people, luggage etc, the camber probably levels out again.
The car is sitting "downhill" at the moment if you know what I mean, the rear sits higher than the front, but I guess with time that will settle down.

Just check my springs - The old low ones had 4 and a quarter turns, the new ones 5 and a quarter turns.

[Bambino126]

The old ones were 190mm high. New ones sit 220mm high so the car should have raised 30mm. It actually looks much more than this but that could be because I replaced all the rubber parts while I was in there.

[Craig126]

Also not forgetting that the old parts you removed may have sagged over time due to age.

I have the same with mine at the moment, massive positive camber on the rear but mine is a bare shell so very little weight in it.




The rear coils on these seem to not be progressive, as in the coils are the same size with same gap so you may find cutting 1/4 or 1/2 coil off will get you back to less camber and equal the ride height front to rear. Your best bet is to run it for a good few weeks to let it bed in and settle. Have you got any pictures of how the cars sitting, just for curiosity.

[Bambino126]

Thanks Craig.
Yes that's just what mine looks like - a bit on the front, and loads on the rear, both positive.
But like you say some more miles are needed before I can make any conclusions.

I'll take some pics when the car is back on the ground... Re-doing my leaf spring ATM to get it right this time.