Camber wrong on ‘35

AnthonyG

AnthonyG

Well-known member
Camber wrong on ‘35

Hi all, just completing a hydraulic brake conversion test my ‘35. Took it up & down the driveway & all worked fine, backed into garage & when looking at front end tires r in @ the bottom out @ the top? Camber is wrong. Is there an adjustment for camber on a ‘35?
Part of the job was putting ‘40+ spindles & new king pins to accept bendix style Lincoln brakes on the front. All went together fine.
Help. Sorry pics so small? Couldn’t make bigger?
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

How many degrees does the wheel lean out at top? I think it’s supposed to be a half degree to one degree, but an expert will confirm soon. It shouldn’t look like a drifting Honda with the tops of the wheels inward.

All the parts you assembled, according to your list, should give a proper camber. Unless your axle is bent.
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

alchemy said:
How many degrees does the wheel lean out at top? I think it’s supposed to be a half degree to one degree, but an expert will confirm soon. It shouldn’t look like a drifting Honda with the tops of the wheels inward.

All the parts you assembled, according to your list, should give a proper camber. Unless your axle is bent.
Click to expand...

I concur!

Coop

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Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

Sure the spindles could be on the wrong side, but the camber would still be correct. His steering arms wouldn’t be on the backside of the spindle though.
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

Pretty easy to get a close idea of the camber using a board along with an angle finder, digital level, or a phone.
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

My foggy memory tells me that I read a post somewhere that mentioned spindles could be installed upside down. Is that a possibility?
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

If installed upside down the camber would be about 12 degrees negative. And the steering arms wouldn’t even begin to attach to the tie rod and drag link. It would be an instantly obvious mistake.
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

Right alchemy, added to avoid the agg’s before installing wrong Speedway’s spindles r marked Left & Right, at least the ones I got were! I’m sure I just was use to the worn out KPs letting the old spindles sag looking perpendicular or maybe even towed out a bit. So that combined w Coops info on up to 1.5 positive degrees per side is good & a slight need to adjust the steering link few threads made the first peak @ it after I backed into garage look odd to me.
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

As a point of interest and the reason that they were built with positive camber is, that the old highways had a fairly large crown, to keep water from standing and promote draining of the roadway.

You'll still find these high crowned roads in old towns Medford, OR is one of them but, newer hwys are flat or have a slight, flat angle to them and the positive camber, isn't needed anymore.

The high crowned, Medford city streets have so much crown, that when it's icy, you can slide to the curb, when stopping at a light.
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

There used to be couple places around here that had those special cold bending jacks for twisting the axle ends to change the caster or bend them to adjust the camber but they have been out of business for 20-years. One guy specialized in early Ford hot rods where you lose the caster when you lower the front end, he could twist the axle ends backwards to bring the caster back. Maybe a heavy truck shop could do it. You would need to hit something awful hard to bend a forged, Early Ford axle. You would have other noticeable problems. If an early Ford is stock and at the stock ride hide front and back the camber and caster should never change. I admit, early Fords look like they have too much positive camber. It's really noticeable on a Model A with those tall skinny tires. They always look like the are tires leaning outward too far at the top. Looks like it would wear the outer-side tread away. That's the way they were.

In this 1934 press photo, three woman and a man died in a collision with a heavy coupe when their gas tank exploded. It looks like the only thing to survive was the forged axle.
 

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Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

If the toe in is badly out of adjustment, excessively toed in, forward motion would give the effect of positive camber, by pulling the tires in at the bottom. Rearward motion would pull the tires out at the bottom and give the effect (or illusion) of negative camber.

As you did not notice a problem before you reversed it back in to the garage, I would suspect it is something like this.

Camber is not adjustable and as long as nothing is bent it should be ok. If it is genuinely wrong then something needs to be bent to get it right. That something would be the axle.

People say heavy truck shops can do it but I have no personal experience. Mart.
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

frnkeore said:
As a point of interest and the reason that they were built with positive camber is, that the old highways had a fairly large crown, to keep water from standing and promote draining of the roadway.

You'll still find these high crowned roads in old towns Medford, OR is one of them but, newer hwys are flat or have a slight, flat angle to them and the positive camber, isn't needed anymore.

The high crowned, Medford city streets have so much crown, that when it's icy, you can slide to the curb, when stopping at a light.
Click to expand...

In Iowa we build brand new streets with a 2% slope from the centerline.
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

Nobody builds roads with an arch in them. Just straight slope from the center. I think the equal camber on each side of the axle is to aid steering effort on a flat plane. If they were trying to overcome a sideways slope for some reason, the camber would probably be different on each side. I dunno. I’m not an enginure.
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

Dear all,
when talking about Camber, does anyone know what would be the recommended Caster angle when the car is used for racing? I have an A Ford chassis used as base for an Indy race car, bulid in the 40's-50's, I can change the Caster on this modified chassis by means of shims.
Thanks in advance
Hans Hendrik
 
Re: Camber wrong on ‘35

Many, many years ago, a few of us guys in the car club, built
an old jalopy style car to have fun with at the drags. We used
a '40 front axle as far as I remember.
Some of the guys with a bit of front end alignment skills set the
caster at 7 or 8 degrees.
I know the old thing steered pretty good, as any of the guys
who took it down the track, said it steered pretty straight, even
if you didn't hold that tight a grip on the wheel as you were
slowing down, it held a straight line. ;)


.
 
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