Tires are rotated, the car is back on the ground again, so I took my camber gauge out to see where I stand on solving this tram lining problem.

20201212_170605 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Well that is not what I expected at all! Also reinforces in my brain why its better to measure things than trust your eyeball.

This also has presents another problem I'll have to investigate this weekend. There is no further adjustment left in the strut mounts to get the camber from the 1.5 deg positive its at currently to the .25 deg of negative camber its supposed to have.

The struts are one of the few things I haven't had out of this car so far, so its a mystery as to what the previous owner may have done to it. I'm suspicious he may have had camber bolts installed at one point while having an alignment done. I can't conceive of any other explanation as to why the camber would still be so far out with the factory adjustment maxed out. I guess I'll find out this weekend.

Spent this afternoon in the garage working on my camber.

I did take out the strut bolts to investigate whether there had been camber bolts put in at some point.

20201213_153851 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

No camber bolts to be found.

After re-assembling the car from this I put it back down & decided to drive it up and down the driveway a few times to get the suspension to settle into its normal position. Doing this brought the measurements to +ve / .25 deg on the LF and -ve 1.5 deg on the RF. Now there just isn't any more adjustment left to bring the LF to the -ve .25 deg I was aiming for, so I instead elected to bring the RF out to the same +ve .25 deg as the LF. At the very least they are the same now, and I don't imagine a half of a degree will have a tremendous impact on the handling of the car. I'm sure I'll have to fiddle with the toe again in the spring now, but I'm gonna call this dealt with.

Left front.

20201213_162511 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Right front.

20201213_171135 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

I assume you zero'd out that guage? I have the same one and there is an adjusting knob on the bottom. The side to side difference would still be accurate though.
I bought a digital table saw blade angle measurer and use it all the time.. first time was for driveshaft/engine angles.

Yes, I did zero out the gauge before starting the whole process. Appears equal on both sides is the best I can hope for without putting camber bolts in and going through the whole process again. I'm not gonna lose any sleep over a half degree for cruising around on the street. If I autocrossed the car or something like that I might worry about it more, but my primary goal is to just not be constantly fighting the steering cruising on uneven roads. I've no doubt this will be an improvement.

Moved on to other things on this winter's to do list yesterday.

My 1.6 ratio rockers for the intakes came in finally.

131424591_228994031907362_6115763069931309573_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Full rollers would have been nice, but at $8 each, the price on these were quite attractive.

Spent an hour or so popping them on yesterday. I was relieved to see there was adequate clearance in the pushrod hole in the head.........just barely, but they do clear.

20201214_152250 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Last thing to do now is take care of the oil leak and adjust the cam timing. May get going on that next weekend.

So naturally after spending the better part of an afternoon last weekend getting my camber all set up on the front of the car, a deal too good to pass up happened today.

20201217_161201 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

20201217_165639 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Guess I'll get to do it all over again after these are installed! Lol!

Decided to tackle the cam timing/oil leak this weekend.

What a monumental pain it is getting the oil pan dropped low enough to get the timing cover on and off in the car with the oil cooler lines in the way. Good there weren't any young ears in the vicinity while this was happening!

But, the cam has been adjusted to a 108 deg intake centerline (probably closer to 109 with the slack this timing chain has after 13,000'ish kms on it). According to simulations, 109 deg would be ideal, so that should hopefully work out.

20201221_114753 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Once the timing cover was back on & the oil pan tightened back up, I decided to call it a day. That is where my patience ran out, so best to finish up another day.

Finished up the last few details and got the car running again yesterday (other than setting the ignition timing that will obviously be retarded a few degrees now). After letting the car come right up to temp, I've left the car since & for the first time in a long time there are no oil drips under it! Lol!

This turned out to be the cause of the leak. I'm at a loss as to how that corner of the timing cover got twisted in that way, but now that its been straightened back out the way it should be, the leak seems to be resolved.

132393869_420966292387775_8209711759535520543_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Started on putting my Hotchkis springs in today after setting the ignition timing.

Rears took no time at all. Actually wound up with about 1 1/4" of drop. Looks MUCH better!

20201228_121736 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr


20201228_122329 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Fronts are obviously taking a lot more time, but I at least got the RF done today before running out of ambition.

This is what the ride height was previously.

20201228_122350 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

So I'm beyond thrilled that it sits like this currently. Keep in mind I still have the stock spring in the LF, so it will likely come down a touch more when that spring is done too.

20201228_135836 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Put the LF spring in yesterday.

Now that all 4 springs are in the measurements to the fender have gone from 28.5 inches in the front and 28 in the rear down to 26 7/8 front, 27 rear. It finally has the stance I wanted it to have. I am actually surprised the amount it lowered the car was significantly lower than the advertised 1 inch at least in the front anyway.

The best part is that the camber is now right in spec on the RF, and the LF only needs to be tweaked .5 of a degree. Additionally, I had measured the positioning of the rear end of the car prior to swapping springs and found it to be 3/4" off center. Now with the new springs in its only 1/4" off center, so it would seem I won't need to invest in an adjustable panhard bar.

Given that I got significantly more drop in the front than expected, and the fact the my camber wouldn't come into spec with the old springs, I'm starting to question whether the springs in the front of the car may not have been the OE ones, maybe having been replaced with the wrong springs.

The new stance definitely looks much better!

20210104_125939 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

As is often the case, one upgrade leads to another.

When I had the sway bar unbolted to put the Hotchkis springs in the car, I got looking at the end links. They didn't look like they were the originals, but they also looked like they were getting tired. I then moved on and looked at the sway bar to body bushings which absolutely looked to be the 30 year old originals............I got thinking it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to be cruising around on brand new Hotchkis springs & 30 year old wore out bushings!

20210120_182427 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

After cruising around on RockAuto I realized there are a boat load of different size sway bars on these cars, so I put it up on the hoist to measure what is in this car. What I found out was a good news, bad news scenario. The good news is this car has the biggest front sway bar that was available at 36 mm (1 7/16"). The bad news is a quick search didn't turn up any upgraded bushings for this big of a sway bar, so I ended up just getting stock replacement AC Delco bushings (as are the end links). While I was ordering parts, I also elected to order new polyurethane Energy Suspension panhard bar bushings. Still waiting on those to arrive.

I now have something to do on my upcoming vacation time!

Now that all the old stuff has been removed, looks like they were a little more used up than I thought!

142548329_436735667448269_5464765125734703040_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

142397836_416131309455208_7550916720266807860_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

142563065_726664078223548_1434980732891649639_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

142359569_2914428858882763_1449901733288030215_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

With the ride height being considerably lower now, the front sway bar links were going to need to be shortened. I got them the best part of 3/4" shorter while still leaving enough thread to compress the bushings.

20210124_133129 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

A comparison of stock length vs shortened.

20210124_133310 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

After seeing the condition of the old stuff, this may make a more noticeable difference than I had anticipated!

20210124_143859 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

20210124_143935 by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

The rears were basically a carbon copy of the condition of the fronts.

Just waiting on my panhard bar bushings to arrive now. I'm super curious to see the condition of those when they come out. Last summer I really started noticing the rear end of the car having a sloppy or vague feeling during more spirited cornering, so I'm fairly certain on what I'm going to find.

The last piece of this winter's suspension upgrade arrived today!

143465440_256589545995852_7477272720604406144_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Honestly the panhard bar bushings are the ones I was looking forward to the most. You could feel the flex in the rear end when cornering at a brisk pace.

This stuff is so much easier to do now that I have my own press in my garage!

143734454_1036798740159886_56609743311217219_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

Everything went together really smoothly.

142998929_319621816109516_2789357873862784340_n by Hewitt Shane, on Flickr

After getting the car back on the ground, giving the car a push sideways results in absolutely zero flex in the rear end..........really looking forward to getting back out on the road with this car in the spring.

Awesome to see this thread still going. Nice work.

It's currently at 110,000+ views, so evidently there are lots of people following along still..........I'll keep plugging away at it!