Can someone please please please helpe straighten this mess out. Some of these alignment shops down have no idea of what they're doing. Two shops wouldn't even touch it. The other one said they could do it. they did it but only adjust the toe and told me that they're not able to adjust the camper and the caster it requires special tools. I'm very handy when it comes to automotive I know the shims are right near the upper ball joint for the caster and the camber are right behind the upper control arm. But what I need to do to straighten this out Remove? add? Shims. I'm not 100% sure. Thank you

 

 

Is your suspension in good order? There is no point in aligning a bad suspension. I have pretty bad negative camber on my XJS as a result of bad cradle bushings.

There is no reason for the caster or camber to be out of spec. It can only be caused by wear or damage. I highly doubt the shims have rusted away, so the most likely case is that your bushings and ball joints are all deteriorated and so the alignment is out of spec.

A monkey can change toe, so its easy to keep that where it should be.
You don't need any fancy tools to adjust any of those on an XJS, the only thing separate from normal sockets and wrenches that could be useful is perhaps a spring retainer/keeper.

You need to fix all of the suspension and then get it aligned. If they tell you they don't know how, I would recommend never visiting that shop again. You can buy some stuff to make measurements at home, but caster and camber are more difficult. Fix up the suspension and then take it to a european place or somewhere that works on older cars that is familiar with shims and get it aligned.

New people at pep boys and quik lubes are only familiar with turning some eccentrics to align the car and probably aren't even very familiar with SLA type suspensions.

 

That has to be one of the best info postings, I have ever seen!

Just the thing to take along to any Shop that you have chosen to do your alignment.

I'll bet not many Garage/Shops have got one of those in the drawer and I could have really done with that, when my front wheel alignment went right out of the window.

 

Thanks for the reply guys. Everything is new.I replaced all the Ball joints upper and lower control arm bushing's new shock bushings ,motor mounts, inner and outer tie rod'. After I finished all the repairs I drove right to the alignment shop which is where the above post leaves me. Since nothing has been touched for the camber and castor is it possible I could do it myself. If so, what do I move and where do I move it?

 

The rear camber one side at 0.5° negative camber, that is fine. The other side at 0.9° is a tad too much. To correct this you undo the driveshat where it joints the diff/brake discs and add shims. Toe etc etc at the rear is fine.

Front:

Factory specs are:

Castor:3.5° positive +- 0.25°
Camber: 0.5° negative +- 0.25°
Toe: 0 to 1.6mm toe IN (o to 1/16 inch toe in) = about 0.5° toe in.

Toe: I am not sure from your printout , but IF, repeat if, the figures refer to TOE being OUT, then that is incorrect. If it refers to toe in, then the settings are OK, but as the guy only adjusted one side, the rack self centering may be fighting the natural tracking.

The toe at the front should be set to 0.5° Toe IN. The method to achieve this is to adjust BOTH sides on the rack-end ball joints (called tie rods over this side).

Proceed as follows to properly adjust the toe:

1) Centre the rack. You will find a small rubber bung, or a small bolt on the rack body that, when removed, allows a 3mm rod to slide home into a hole as the rack is gently turned back and forth. When 'home' the rack is centred.

2) Loosen the lock nuts on the tie-rod-balljoint/rack end threads.

3) Measure the toe EACH side independently and wind each rack tie rod in or out (there is a flat on the tie rod) so as to set it to 0.5° toe in (about 1/16 inch).

When done, retighten the tie rod locknuts.

FYI, the front camber, if it needs to be adjusted requires the top wishbone pivot rod that is bolted to the subframe to be unbolted and shimmed in or out. Unless the subframe has bent or given, this cannot go out of spec if the bushes are in proper shape.

The front castor is adjusted by moving from the front side to the rear side (or vice versa) the thick shims that are between the outboard end of the top wishbone arms, through which the two balljoint fixing bolts go, to attach the arms to the top balljoint.

Hope this helps
Greg

 

Perhaps it was adjusted before you got the car, when the suspension was worn, so the shims have been moved from factory spec.

That was my bad assuming they were in factory positions.

To adjust the camber add or remove the shims in pairs, the adjust the caster remove from one and add to the other. So adding to the uhh...front one would move caster back i think. Just look at it and see what its doing, can't imagine in my head right now for some reason

 

Castor is adjusted using the shims at the upper ball joint position not the inner top wishbone mount.

 

thanks, haven't had to do any work on mine so i've never even looked for the shims, was just making assumptions based on the other SLAs i've adjusted using shims

 

Makes sense to me so far. When looking at the printed specs that I uploaded in which direction are the arrows pointing to? If the arrow is all the way to the right does that mean the shim has to be moved to the back or the front?

You guys of been great so far. I'm trying to do this myself that way I can bring it anywhere to have an alignment check (free) to see where I stand.

Thx.

I most likely messed up putting the shims back in.

 

It shows camber is negative for both and the printout shows caster as positive for both.I believe the shims baxtor mentioned are in between the two halves of the upper a-arm.

Normally an equal number of shims are added at the base of the a arm for camber. Just picture the caster in your head. Adding shims to the front side will essentially put the top ball joint further back in relation to the bottom one, making caster more positive.

I don't really trust these systems with older vehicles though. Check out the specs.
That says your caster should be 2-6 degrees. So it is nearly in spec. You can certainly get it in the middle, but the computer limits your camber to 3.3 and 3.8, which isn't the spec.
The camber is definitely out of spec though. You want -.1 to -.9 and you are well over -.9 at -1.3

 

Interesting. I wonder what changed in the cars. I have an '88 1/2 shop manual and the caster is .25-3.5 and the camber is .5-.25

 

You might have misread the specs and confused the plus or minus? The specs are, as in my post above:

Factory specs are:

Castor:3.5° positive +- 0.25°
Camber: 0.5° negative +- 0.25°

Greg

 

Correct, as per my post above
Greg

 

SS

CAMBER is adjusted at the subframe, by moving the top wishbone inner pivot rod outwards or in. Bolts attaching the pivot, that go through the subframe top, have to be undone and shimmed.

The CASTOR is adjusted by moving the shims on the outer end of the top wishbone, that are between the arms and the actual balljoint, from one side of the balljoint to the other.

If you already knew this, please accept my apologies, but in case the OP is confused by all this rather opaque discussion, it is important to be clear for him, I think.

Greg

 

A picture speaks 1000 words

Wishbone and Balljoint-Upper - Parts For XJS from (V)139052 to (V)179736 | Jaguar Heritage Parts UK

#11 shims are used to adjust caster

#13 shims are used to adjust camber


Cheers
DD

 

Thanks Doug, great post! Now we just have to agree the specs...

Greg

 

I *think* sidescrollin is referring to the change in specs as described in the 1995 TSB that he posted a link to. I wonder if Jaguar really intended that the entire XJS 20 year model run should use the specs shown in this bulletin. Seems it bit broad and sweeping to me.

Cheers
DD

 

Far more likely a TSB misprint, Doug !

Greg

 

yeah i didn't know it was of this type because I haven't looked at the shims, or the suspension much at all on my car. If you look at my most recent post after baxtor mentioned the caster adjustment being different, I explained how the shims are setup just like you just did