DIY-Camber Plate install, impressions

[CarJunkie]

EDIT: Skip down 8 posts for impressions



I am installing camber plates and have had difficulty getting the strut out. It does not want to come out of the strut mount bracket at the bottom. I removed the strut top and that allows me to get it moving a little, but in looking at the room I have to work with, I am not sure I can lift it up high enough to clear the bottom bracket.

Any suggestions from someone who has dont this before?

Many thanks in advance!

[ayao]

I think you need someone to press down on the lower control arm which will allow you to pull the lower part of the strut out of the spindle.
Disclaimer: I paid a shop to do this.

http://www.vorshlag.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8126

[Ric in RVA]

Disconnect the sway bar?

[CarJunkie]

Yes, everything was properly disconnected. I finally figured out the issue was that the lower strut body was pretty well seized to the spindle. It did not drop AT ALL when I removed the clamp bolt. Each side took about 5-10 minutes of hammering away at the spindle to get it dropped. Once loose, there was plenty of room to wiggle the strut out.

Fortunately I had a pretty stout block of hard wood to protect the aluminum from the hammer. It seems aluminum on aluminum likes to seize up.

[ayao]

Out of curiosity, do you have the benefit of using a lift or are you on jackstands?

I had to make some adjustments to rear coilovers and getting the eccentric bearing to line up with the rear lower control arm and the spindle assembly was just a massive PITA ... I still have emotional trauma from that experience.

Imagining going to town on a front LCA with a 2x4 and hammer causes me PTSD.

[Pig Farmer]

Out of curiosity, once the pinch bolt was removed, did you use a spreader to open up the spindle? Schwaben makes a spindle spreader and others have used a 1/4" drive (turned at 45 degrees) to spread the spindle. This may be helpful when reinstalling the struts.

https://www.ecstuning.com/ES3894/?gc...FYeRHwodeN0Gww

[CarJunkie]

Originally Posted by ayao

Out of curiosity, do you have the benefit of using a lift or are you on jackstands?

I had to make some adjustments to rear coilovers and getting the eccentric bearing to line up with the rear lower control arm and the spindle assembly was just a massive PITA ... I still have emotional trauma from that experience.

Imagining going to town on a front LCA with a 2x4 and hammer causes me PTSD.

I have a lift. I didn't hammer on the LCA. There is about a 5mm lip on the spindle that I placed the wood block on. It was very hard oak, so it worked. A soft piece of standard 2x4 would have shredded!

[CarJunkie]

Originally Posted by Pig Farmer

Out of curiosity, once the pinch bolt was removed, did you use a spreader to open up the spindle? Schwaben makes a spindle spreader and others have used a 1/4" drive (turned at 45 degrees) to spread the spindle. This may be helpful when reinstalling the struts.

https://www.ecstuning.com/ES3894/?gc...FYeRHwodeN0Gww

That is a fantastically good idea that never crossed my mind. Thank you for making my re-install much easier! Probably going to do it tomorrow . . .

[CarJunkie]

IMPRESSIONS:

Install:

Strut removal:
-This should be a breeze with proper tools and a lift. Probably OK with Jack stands also. The hardest part was getting the bottom of the strut free from the spindle, but with a 1/4" driver to open up the spindle, it would be a snap. That made reassembly super easy.
-There are only 5 bolts to worry about on the right, six on the left. Three nuts at the top of the strut tower, the spindle clamp bolt, and the upper stabilizer mount. On the driver's side, there is also a small lever that controls the headlight level, mounted to the LCA (that's #6), easily removed. Free up everything at the bottom first, including using a spindle spreader or 1/4" driver (Props to Pig Farmer!) to get the the spindle to drop to where it is loose, then turn the steering all the way opposite (for left suspension, turn to right) otherwise you will not have clearance to the strut out of the spindle. Remove the clamp that holds the brake lines so that they are free.
-Lastly, remove the nuts from the top of the strut tower. For the final nut, it helps to keep one hand reached under to hold the strut or spring. Once loose, you will push down on the hub assembly while letting it lean out to get free of the bottom of the strut. You will not have enough clearance without the steering position I described above.
-HINT: The struts are asymmetric due to the placement of the stabilizer mount, but are NOT labelled. I recommend labeling them when they come off so that you mate them to the correct camber plates.

Camber Plate install:
-I used a cheap set of spring compressors which required manually cranking them down on each side. Royal PIA, the hardest part of this job. Our springs are very highly pre-loaded! I had to crank the compressors down about 1.5 inches to get the top mount free.
-A buddy supplied an 18V cordless electric impact wrench which was able to break the top nut loose. The Vorshlag center core is about 3mm taller (does not effect ride height, just the position of the nut relative to the threads on the shock), so the springs had to be compressed a little more to get the nut started.
-The plates must be properly mated to each respective strut, right and left. The Vorshlag plates each indicate RF or LF with an arrow pointing to the front for orientation.

CASTER adjustment:
-Caster has three positions that are adjusted by removing 4 bolts and reinstalling in new holes. There are 3 positions, stock, and two positions that increase positive Caster. Caster can not be adjusted after install, plate can be mounted to the strut, but must be off the car. I started by setting max positive caster, but discovered when I got the strut in the car that the negative camber was limited slightly as the strut top nut would contact the strut tower opening with about 5mm of camber adjustment range left. I put the caster in the middle setting, so still an increase from stock, and was then able to get the full range of negative camber.
-So, if your car is like mine, you will need to be conservative on the caster if you want max negative camber.

Reinstall:
-Steering still needs to be to the opposite side!
-Make sure each strut goes on the correct side with the Vorshlag plate facing front as indicated by the arrow. I hung the strut from the strut tower using the bolt closest to the fender, nut threaded on enough to hold it but with plenty of free play. Then, push down on the hub assembly and get it around the strut at least loosely.
-hand tighten the three strut tower nuts (the ones with a lip that came off the car, not the ones that came on the camber plates.
-spread the spindle, push the hub assembly all the way up which requires lining up the tab to the spindle slot. Once it is seated all the way, remove the spindle spreader. It will stay put. Reinstall the brake line carrier, clamp bolt and stabilizer mount.
-HINT: I was able to do all of this myself, but I am sure a second set of hands would have helped!

CAMBER adjustment:
-If you hand tightened the strut tower nuts, you should be ready, just make sure things are snug but movable. There are hashmarks on the plate, but I needed a flashlight to see them once on the car. Set the camber where you want it then tighten the bolts.
-Easy to adjust again later by offloading the suspension, loosening the three strut top mounts and pushing/pulling.
-I put a 21mm socket over the strut top nut and pushed it as far over as that would allow, which was about 2-3mm away from max negative. All of the strut tower nuts were then torqued. Interestingly, once the car was lowered, that 21mm socket would not go back over the strut top nut, so things definitely move a bit once loaded.

Drove around the block and pulled in straight to take some measurements, steering wheel dead center:

Initial results as described above:
Camber: -3.0 left / -2.8 right.
Total toe: 0.12" OUT

I plan to increase the right side to match the left, then I will fix the toe as well as I can before driving to a shop for proper alignment.

[CarJunkie]

Can anyone guess how the toe correction will effect the camber? I am thinking that decreasing toe out will increase negative camber due to the caster angle.

I am just surprised that I got -3 with some room to spare.

[CarJunkie]

UPDATE

I balanced out the camber by decreasing the left front, thinking the toe adjustment would result in increased negative camber, but it did the opposite. I am now symmetric with -2.7 degrees camber on both sides at zero toe, so the toe correction actually decreased the negative camber.

I am going to keep it this way for a while and decide if I want to increase the negative camber. I could get to somewhere in the -2.9 range by the looks of it, but I am happy with where it is at this point, and it drives great!

[CarJunkie]

Update #2:
After about 300 miles of driving, I started having a popping/clunking sensation in the steering wheel at very low speeds (less than about 5-10 mph) when turning the steering wheel. It pops several times going from lock to lock even when stopped, but not necessarily at the same points.


Troubleshooting so far:
I have verified that everything is tight, swaybar end links and mounts, strut mounts, no way to verify the strut top nut, but it was tightened with an impact wrench.

With hood open and someone else steering (engine running for power steering purposes) I do not hear anything in either wheel well or near the strut tops, which appear to by moving freely. With fingertips on the strut top nut and camber plates, no popping is felt there.

With car on lift, suspension completely offloaded, the problem goes away.

Any ideas?

[CarJunkie]

UPDATE #3

This has been an adventure. Found the reason for the steering issue.

Vorshlag's instructions make it sound like there will be more problems from an under-tightened top nut. Not only that, they recommend using an impact gun to tighten the top nut and their only description is to wrench it down until the sound of the gun changes. Not exactly reproducible or accurate.

My problem described in update #2 was definitely the result of an OVER-TIGHTENED top nut. Not only that, but an impact gun is not really required for install on the 1M since our strut shaft accepts a 14mm socket above the threads allowing you to tighten or adjust the nut with standard hand tools. It would have been nice to have an accurate torque spec for that nut as it could be properly torqued.

I was experiencing spring bind, which is a common problem with Macpherson struts. The entire strut assembly rotates with steering input. If there is resistance to rotation in the top mount, the spring (which is being driven by the lower mount during steering inputs) will twist until it has enough rotational energy stored to overcome the resistance at the top mount, at which point it snaps. This is felt through the steering, but makes very little noise. Its well described, makes sense, and matches my symptoms perfectly. I could observe it happening by watching the spring rotate while someone else turned the wheel for me.

On the Vorshlag plates, the spherical bearing should only handle the axial movements. There is a sealed greased bearing for rotational movements. I could see that my spherical bearings were rotating with steering input, so the over-tightened top nut was probably compressing the sealed bearing enough to lock it. Once I loosened the top nut, the spherical bearing stopped rotating with the strut shaft and there was no more popping sensation in the steering wheel with multiple lock to lock turns. I now have them both tightened just to the threshold the prevents the spherical bearing from rotating, not as tight as I would have expected. I removed and replaced each one with fresh loctite applied to make sure nothing changes.

Anyhow, all is well now. I put about 300 miles on the car this way, which was hopefully not enough to ruin the spherical mounts. A few more weeks of regular driving may have.

Even if someone has a shop install these plates, it would be a good idea to make sure the spherical bearings are not rotating with steering input ASAP after install, especially if they tightened the top nut with an impact gun.

[Pig Farmer]

For future reference, this link contains the torque specs for nearly every nut & bolt on the suspension. For example, the top nut only requires 47ft/lbs.

http://www.e90post.com/forums/attach...2&d=1342813525

[CarJunkie]

Great link, but the camber plates are different from the stock mounts, so optimum torque may be different. I am surprised Vorshlag doesn't give any info other than "most spherical bearing problems are from a loose top nut and it is so easy to do it right." Or something like that.

[ayao]

Vorshlag goes out of its way to emphasize using an air-powered impact wrench rather than ordinary hand tools (for fear of leaving the nut under-tightened) ... as if to imply that it can't really be tightened too much -- which does not seem like the case in your example! Thanks for sharing your experience.

[CarJunkie]

Originally Posted by ayao

Vorshlag goes out of its way to emphasize using an air-powered impact wrench rather than ordinary hand tools (for fear of leaving the nut under-tightened) ... as if to imply that it can't really be tightened too much -- which does not seem like the case in your example! Thanks for sharing your experience.

That's right, and they also seem to think that use of hand tools would require using something to pinch-grip the strut shaft to prevent it from rotating, which could mar the shaft. They warn against it for that reason. Their instructions seem to completely miss the fact that the top of our strut shaft is a hex, and therefore you would never need to mar the shaft trying to pinch grab it.

As far as I can tell, the instructions in the link above are specific to the 1M, but maybe they wanted it to apply to other vehicles??

[AntonioZ]

Okay, Im having this issue with trying to install the top strut bolt (22mm) without the strut spinning. I have KW v2 and ground control camber plates. I don't see any sort of hex key at the top other then the damping adjustment. So is 50 ft-lbs enough? Don't want to over tighten or under tighten.

[CarJunkie]

The stock strut has a hex at the top, not sure about KW.

If the strut shaft is spinning, you may need to use an impact gun to get it tight enough, but then you won't be able to tighten to exact torque. Too loose is much worse than a little too tight.