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More caster on my 65 by moving the UCA pivot shaft?

C

Coupe

Member
My 65 is finally getting its alignment after rebuilding the entire car and every moving part! I am using the caster/camber gauge from Summit so I can hit my numbers without a shop being involved, but I have hit a snag of sorts.

The drivers side is where I want it with only 2 shims, but my passenger side UCA is shimmed out on the front bolt, no shims on the rear bolt, I already have positive camber and not enough caster, so I cant just add more shims to the front to hit my target, in fact I need less shims already.

The car must have seen some serious potholes over its life, or it was a Friday "Quitin time" car? but I do have an export brace on with a monte carlo bar.

I need to look elsewhere for more caster, so I was pondering moving the arm on the shaft, I have the room in the tower to do this.

If I wanted to move the UCA back on the shaft to gain more caster with less shims can I just knock the bolts out of the shaft and rotate the shaft one full turn or do I need to grind off the stop tabs (Opentracker UCA's) and get the end nuts off and adjust it that way? I really hope I can just rotate the shaft and get where I want to be because I do not want to take the UCA off of the spindle, grind off the stops, scratch up the arm in a vise to get the nuts loose etc..
 
Is your car level on the back and front corners?
WOW , on a leveled floor , doesn't sit one end of the car a bit lower ?
Aignment suffers when the car doesn't sit straight IMO.
 
I know it would seem obvious but have you tried calling John (Opentracker) and getting his advice?
 
"Horseplay" said:
I know it would seem obvious but have you tried calling John (Opentracker) and getting his advice?
Click to expand...

I sent him an email this morning, I hate to bother him on the phone.

As far as level, yes the car is on a lift that is level and square when in a parked position.
 
"Coupe" said:
I sent him an email this morning, I hate to bother him on the phone.
Click to expand...

Call him, it's much better than an email.
 
Thanks guys. He's gonna offset the shaft and see if that helps.

I would rather talk over the phone. Takes less time and we get more info swapped.
 
Hi:

I'll probably call opentracker, too, but I think this idea of offsetting the standard arms is something that should be followed up more by some of the aftermarket suppliers, rather than the Shelby drops and the various more exotic UCAs on the market. It would seem to be a lot simpler, cheaper and for the vast majority of drivers just as good.

Cheers,
/s/ Chris Kennedy
 
It should be a more popular mod for sure. Here are some roller arms I did for a pro drag team. They wanted 8deg. of caster and couldn't get it - Do now .

offsetdruca1.jpg
offsetdruca2.jpg
 
Excellent, Opentracker! Why don't you make and market such an arm----perhaps shoot for around 5-6 degrees or so (currently I have around 3.4 degrees positive on my standard UCAs)? I once had an '81 Corvette, and one of the suppliers made an upper control arm that was slightly re-angled for more positive caster. It was a popular modification for those who knew a bit about what positive caster could do. Need funding to do this---you can use my car as a test vehicle?

Cheers,
/s/ Chris
 
I have a lot of ideas that are not on the web site. I can do that to early Nova upper arms too now, we just got the Chevy ll roller arms figured out.

I need 36hr days and 9 days a week to get 'er done.
 
"Opentracker" said:
I have a lot of ideas that are not on the web site. I can do that to early Nova upper arms too now, we just got the Chevy ll roller arms figured out.

I need 36hr days and 9 days a week to get 'er done.
Click to expand...

Maybe you just need someone in a central location that has time and a welder to help out *cough*
 
"silverblueBP" said:
Maybe you just need someone in a central location that can break things and has time and a welder to help out *cough*
Click to expand...

Fixed it for ya....in bold for Mark, red for the rest of us.
 
Jeez, Pete...I thought he was referring Jeremy for some additional business...
 
Well, I actually got 1.5 turns out of it, but it did not really change my numbers any...I dont get it.

I cannot get negative camber even with no shims, I know I have a tweaked tower because even with the 1.5 turns I still have room to use the grease fitting? Its like the tower is a bit wide, but ill be damned if I can see much damage. I am guessing the car had an issue at some point and a shop pulled it put but maybe went to far, how else can I end up with .5 positive camber with no shims at all, the tower must be leaning out where the holes are?
I looked for cracks when I had it down to bare metal, nothing visible and I had the wife turn the wheels back-n-forth while I looked for any signs of movement and saw nothing obvious.

I guess at some point I will pull the motor and change the tower (Or remove them for a mod motor swap?)

But, for the short term I want to drive it! So,I guess I will try some vario-centric things to get the lower arm to stick out a bit so I can get to 0
 
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