I finally got round to checking my camber after the front end rebuild earlier this year and am a bit concerned about what I found.

As far as I can see from the workshop manual, for my RHD 2002 4.2 car, the target cambers should be

Front Left -0.8 deg decimal
Front Right 0 deg -0.25 deg decimal

My actual readings were

Front left -0.7 deg decimal, great!
Front right +0.7 deg decimal, ~1 degree out.

Has anyone else ever come across a positive camber issue?

Potential causes may be

- Incorrect upper A arm installed (the two I took of the car had the same part number and I thought they should have been different), no forget this otherwise it would be the same as the other side.

- Incorrect spring installed, the car does look high at the front

- degraded upper/low control arm bushes

- Damaged sub frame

Any other thoughts?

 

I remember reading about the upper control arms being different sizes on some cars but I now cant find it, does anyone know where it is?

Forget that, I found it in the pdf version of the service manual, as my vin is 31219 it is supposed to have equal arms on no eccentric bolt.

 

The following is from JTIS

Front Camber and Caster Adjustment

The close tolerance machined alloy subframe installed on NA vehicles with VIN up to 031302, precludes the necessity for adjustment of front suspension geometry during vehicle manufacture. Eccentric lower wishbone fulcrum bolts are available as service items, but should only be fitted when directed by Jaguar Technical Support.On RHD and Japan market LH drive SC vehicles with VIN up to 031302, eccentric fulcrum bolts securing the lower wishbone to the front crossbeam, facilitate adjustment of wheel camber.All RH drive and Japan market LH drive vehicles from VIN 031302, incorporate a long upper wishbone on the RH side of the vehicle and a short upper wishbone on the LH side. There is a 2mm difference between the two wishbones, measured from the centers of the ball joint location and the fulcrum bolt location. The longer wishbone is identified by a countersunk hole in the upper surface adjacent to the ball joint location. All other LH drive vehicles from VIN 031302 onward are fitted with the shorter upper wishbone on both sides. These measures counter the effects of road camber on steering and eliminate the necessity for adjustment of suspension geometry.The vehicle must be checked to establish that it conforms to the Jaguar original specification, e.g. wheels, tires, tire pressures, etc.The 'space saver' wheel must not be installed on any of the hubs when measuring suspension geometry.The vehicle must be unladen and the fuel tank full when measuring suspension geometry.Whilst fulcrum bolts remain available as service items, a suspected suspension problem must be reported to Jaguar Technical Support on the 'Suspension Geometry Record Form' provided and Technical Support consulted, before any adjustments are carried out.

 

Kwikfit are now offering a free Hunter alignment check so I dropped in today with the XK8.

Fronts were:

Left/Right camber was -1deg 6min / -0deg 1min, so well in spec.

Left/Right caster was 5deg 30min / 5deg 5min, so out by more than a degree, anyone know what issues this could cause?

Left/Right toe was 0deg 19min / 0deg 15min, so well in spec.


Rears were;

Left/Right camber was -1deg 23min / -0deg 35min, so left is out of spec. Not easy to fix without changing shims I guess.

Left/Right toe was 0deg 18min / 0deg 6min, so the left is just out of spec. I guess this can be fixed with the eccentrix bolt.

 

Caster is what causes the wheel to self return to a straight ahead position, and gives the car stability at speed. Without knowing the XK spec, 5 degrees would be ok, and if more than spec, even better ... within reason. I would have no problem with as much as 8 degrees on my own car.

The rear toe is adjusted using the eccentric bolts as you suggest. Lessening the toe will also *slightly* decrease negative camber.

 

Your assumptions for correcting the rear measurements are right.

The front castor is adjusted by moving the shims on the inner faces of the upper wishbone bushes from front bush to rear or the other way, as required. Thick shims are 1.6mm and change castor by 0.4 degrees. Thin shims are 0.9mm and change the castor by 0.2 degrees.

The total number of shims allocated to each wishbone fulcrum bolt is 2 thick and 2 thin shims. The total number of shims fitted to each fulcrum bolt must always remain the same, regardless of adjustment to the front and rear shim packs, i.e. no shims should be added or removed from the fulcrum bolt.
Original spec for UK cars is - Left side front bush - One Thick, Left side rear bush - One thick, two thin.

Right side front bush - One thick, one thin, Right side rear bush - One thick, one thin.

 

Unfortunetly it is not that simple to get to the target specs.

I have one thick washer on my front left bush and one thick and one thin on the front right bush.

If I moved these all to the back that would change the castor by 0.4 degrees on the left and by 0.6 degrees on the right, giving me;

Left/Right caster would be 5deg 54min / 5deg 41min, still way out of spec.

So my thinking is just to leave as is to save a lot of trouble unless there is some issue that will result.

 

You might want to consider one of the points that astromorg made. The caster seems to be adjusted quite differently on the XK than the XJ.

According to him, there are always 2 thick and 2 thin shims on each arm, irrespective of whether they are placed on the front or rear of the arm.

There have been other posts where it is speculated that the shims get removed by alignment shops who do not understand the system.

Of course, if you are happy with the current settings, then maybe the matter of the number of shims is just something to keep in the back of your mind.

 

I put all the shims in myself only a couple of months ago, my set up is per the worksop manual for the UK. Getting the shims in was a hell of a job.

Front left/right 1 x thick -------- 1 x thick + 1 x thin

Back left/right 1 x thick + 2 x thin ---------- 1 x thick + 1 x thin

Moving all to the back would be the only option to increase the castor, but still would not meet the spec.

So could there be somthing else at play?

 

What's the condition of the mountings for the main cross beam? If starting to collapse unequally, they could add to or subtract from the castor angle.

 

Taking the left as an example, moving all the shims to the rear according to your calculation would take it to 34 minutes less than minimum spec, or about half a degree.

The spec also implies a difference between left and right because it helps the car track straight on a crowned road. So, the difference you see is approximatley right.

The workshop manual setup is for initial setup on a hypothetical perfect vehicle. The last step is probably a wheel alignment. That is when it is anticipated that you may need to move the shims as required.

I would move the shims and call it good. Don't forget, even putting the same car on the same machine twice in a row can result in slightly different readings.

 

Interesting, this one (left) was shot and replaced a couple of months ago, the other looked good but is about 5 years old, so probably would have different flex charcteristics. This could account for the left to right diference.

 

I will probably go that way once a few other jobs are sorted.

Got to fix my heater pump first as the cold weather has just set in.