Toe in at rear axle?

[jtbo]

Green book left me cold, what kind of figures we should have toe in at rear tires? Front is 3 to 5 mm, but is rear 0 or -1 to 2mm as it often is with RWD cars?

I would measure, but I don't think my car has completely factory figures after nearly 220 000km on clock

[pettaw]

Rear toe in should be 0 (+-3mm I think) Most of the time as the cars get older the axle bends and they start getting toe'd in which makes the handling suck, dunno what the cure is though apart from finding an axle with less mileage on it.

[jtbo]

That is quite horrible, even going from 1mm toe in to 1mm toe out has quite large effect and having such large margin is quite

But that is how it often is, quite horrible.

I input then 0 as it really is not adjustable, unless multilink upgrade then.

Thanks from this bit

[Fuse]

Actually you can "adjust" the rear axle but it's quite a nerve wrecking job and requires a lot of patience. You can "adjust" the axle by taking out the wheel hubs and placing shim plates with appropriate size and thickness on each corner. This is very much a trial and error type of procedure and it requires some knowledge of the basic suspension geometry, but it can be done if someone wants to play with it.

[jtbo]

Actually you can "adjust" the rear axle but it's quite a nerve wrecking job and requires a lot of patience. You can "adjust" the axle by taking out the wheel hubs and placing shim plates with appropriate size and thickness on each corner. This is very much a trial and error type of procedure and it requires some knowledge of the basic suspension geometry, but it can be done if someone wants to play with it.

That is interesting, this I would like to see pictures of as I'm curious how that shimming is actually done

Sounds at least such process that it is easy to make it much worse than it was at the beginning, that is probably why you call it nerve wrecking, also sizing and placing of shims surely is not a trivial job.

[Ride_on]

Guys I have been down this road, it is a false god. (unless you have banged it)

I thought mine was bent, but have stripped it and measured at about 1.5m radius, it was spot on. Having rethought the mechanics I realised that there is no force trying to bend the axle, the thrust is taken by the springs. It is, if you need, possible to 'adjust' the axle with a sledge hammer when stripped, just make sure you setup a good jig to measure it. I used 2 dolmio jars and 2 long bits of box steel clamped to the flange.

Anyway, as it turns out toe-in is mostly caused by the rear radius arm adjustment. The camber turns into toe-in as the axle rotates... think about it! What we need is new radius arm bushes, and there ain't none! (excuse my bad english).

[Chris_C]

I've just picked up a pair of NOS anti tramp bars, so happy to take some measurements. I was hoping to use the pair and add the mounts on the nearside, but didn't realise there was an angle in one of the bush mounts! Still, can work something out!

[classicswede]

mirror image - flip it over and it will work.

[Chris_C]

They arn't There is a compound angle there that I didn't realise until I had two new ones together!