Refurbishing front suspension. I think someone was there before and made mistakes putting it back together especially passenger side. I was real careful putting the washers/shims in the order they came off. See pics and read captions.


Driver’s side (US). No shims.


Passenger side how came off vehicle. Three shims. Note no dished washer on left and two on right


Passenger side how planning to put back.

 

Yes - someone before you installed it incorrectly. It looks right now but maybe you’re missing a thin ‘castor’ washer in the middle. I know on both sides on my car (driver and passenger) I had 1 thick and 1 thin next to each inside bushing. Check your gap(s) before torquing the bolt. Give your alignment shop a heads up on what you did.

 

No suspension expert. I understand the shims affect the castor angle. Do all cars gets the same shims or during assembly do they add some because of small differences in the manufacturing tolerances?

 

All cars should have 4 shims per axle. 2 thick and 2 thin. The arrangement of these on each side of the pivot bolt varies by market. There are some pics on the forum showing the various arrangements.

 

I would be very much inclined to straighten up those dished washers before refitting. The OEM upper control arm bushings are more of a bearing and will suffer if the rim of that washer does not seal where it meets the rubber bush.

 

I use the U shaped 1/32 and 1/16 alignment shims.
You need to modify them a little by opening up the inner diameter with a carbide bit.
The Jaguar shaft is larger diameter than an old Chevy shaft that uses these shims.

 

@motorcarman Thanks for the diagram. I understand N. America and the UK are reversed because of crowned roads. So the ROW has flat roads? 😁


Took micrometer caliper to Lowe’s. These washers equal one thick and one thin.


On both sides only had one thin so picked this up from O’Riley’s and widened.

 

ROW is a combination of LHD and RHD so l suspect they had neutrality in mind, rather than list a spec for every possible market.