Hi all,
I've got a 96 VDP with 60k miles on it. It's been a garage queen most of it's life. No accidents of any kind.
I went to have it aligned today because it was pulling right and after alignment it still is a little bit.
This shop has been working on my other 2 Jags for over 10 years.
This car is new to me. I've only owned it about 3k miles.
The weird thing is that the rear has no shims at all and adding shims would only make the camber worse.....
Both my other jags have rear shims from the factory of between 6.5 to 7 mm

We're trying to figure out why this car would have no shims on the rear and how to adjust it .
It would seem that to get the camber into spec we would have to mill the ends of the axle.
Could someone have tried to lower the car?

Here are the alignment specs as far as we could move them.

FRONT:
L R
Camber -1.2 -.7
Caster 3 4.4
Toe .05 .03
Total Toe Front 0.09

Rear:
L R
Camber 0.0 -0.3
Toe 0.08 0.08
Total Toe Rear 0.16

The problem is we can't add shims to the rear or it will get worse and the front is adjusted as far as possible as well.

Could there be spring issues? The car was sitting for a very long time.
Another note....
When I purchased the car it had chrome rims from an XJS on it....
I replaced those with the typical factory 96 XJ VDP rims. Could the offset have been different?



S.

 

If the car is pulling sideways, rarely is it due to the suspension. Have you checked the tires for uneven wear, and are the brakes even? Anyway, playing with the suspension and adjusting ride height front and rear can be frustrating. A heavy driver and metal fatigue can cause some issues over a long period of time. The problem is you never know how old are the springs, are they original, and what the previous owner(s) has/have done to the shocks. I had many unsuccessful attempts with my Mercedes C124, even when fitting a whole set of new springs front and rear. Adding different wheels to the equation will simply get you more trouble. My experience with the C124 was to mix old and new shocks front and rear playing with shims of various thickness until the ride height look right, and only till then the car is worth a front wheel alignment.

 

Ok, the big bolt in the hub adjusts toe, no caster adjustment at the back, shims adjust camber, apparently they do not need changing if so close to 0. If they cant be further adjusted with shims then it means you have sagging springs/bent suspension component.
If it pulls to side I'd say something wrong with the front end.

 

The car had premium wheels (the 5 spoke chrome XJS wheels) on it when I purchased it. I replaced those with the standard VDP wheels from 96. I'm wondering if perhaps someone
had tried to lower the car or if the offset of those premium wheels was a little different. If they lowered it the max possible they would have had to remove all the shims.
Now with the current camber I can't change it to bring it into spec without milling the ends of the axle. My only hope is to try to raise the car up a little.
I'm not sure why it should be sagging as it only has 60K miles and my other two cars with 200K each don't sag
(though on one of them I had to replace a shim as it moved
from 7.2mm to 6.5mm This one I would suspect of being an old spring. but that was minimal)
Would being a garage queen for 10 years have cause the springs to sag? is there something else that might cause it like some kind of bushing that might be compressed?
One of the camber settings on the front is out as well. And it does drift right even after bringing it as close as possible to factory.
S

 

I have a 1996 VDP with 70K miles on it. I've had a nagging alignment problem that I need to solve.

On the last iteration I posted the alignment numbers.

On this car there are NO shims on either side of the rear end for camber adjustment. It appears that I need to remove shims that are not there in order
to get the camber set correctly. I have no indication that this car has ever been tampered with. Strangely enough it appears to have come from the factory with no shims.

What I'm trying to find at this point is some information about how much a change in spring length/height will result in how many degrees of camber change. I think we are going to need to shim the springs increasing the ride height enough to get the camber in spec enough to maybe even put in some shims for future possible sag of springs.

The present ride height of all my xj6's is 26 inches. Does anyone have any specific specs about ride height and camber etc. I have a very patient shop I'm working with but they are not Jaguar experts.

I don't have bent suspension or frame, no accidents. help?

Steve

 

If you shim the front cross member away from the frame rail, on the left side so the cambernumber decreases, The right side will increase. Also try, Rotating tires from left to right.

Larry Louton

 

As it turns out a new set of springs lifted me up enough but then I needed shims.

If you are having rear camber problems and can't find axle shims:
I have a machine shop that made me some shims.
Results? If you need shims for the 1/2 axles to differential to adjust rear camber I have NEW shims.
Just let me know what sizes you need. I can have them made for $75 each plus shipping.
My new ones were 6 1/2 mm on one side and 7mm on the other. I can make them from 2 mm and up.
Steve

 

When I last checked, jaguar classic could still supply shims.

 

Rear springs are seldom a issue in the rear. But the upper shock mount spring isolaters are. These greatly affect ride height and go away with time since theyre a foam material. Replace these and upper shock bushings and keep going. Camber in the rear does not need to be changed either until you approach -2*. But after changing the afformentioned pieces youll have less neg. Camber not more. Besides negative camber meens you can going into corners a little faster and maintain a good contact patch at higher speed.
there is not adjustable boilts in the front on this car unfortunatly so if you have drift swap the tires side to side in front and see if it drifts the opposite way.