While building my 48 Chevy Coupe, my friends welded on a 70 Camaro front clip to the frame. Of course this was our first one and we missed the setting of the angle of the wheels so that they are like a shopping cart (tilted back about 1 degree) plus I have power steering! This makes for a very sensitive steering wheel.

What sort of fixes are out there short of cutting the frame apart and re welding the front Camaro clip back on at the correct angle, or cutting the top A arm support off and moving it back.

My alignment guy, who I should have gone to first has taken all of the shims out of the front end to get it to minus 1 degree!

Thanks for any ideas

Jim


EDIT by Deuce
I edited the post for spelling ... I changed the Title ... the read Camaro not Camero

Jim
You could try using a longer bolt in the front of the top wishbones, this along with extra or thicker shims will tilt the top wishbone more to the rear and give you some caster, make sure you use grade eight bolts as replacements and a deformed thread lock nut is not a bad idea either. Older cars had more caster to compensate for bias ply tyres, radial tyres reduce the need for more than a degree or two. By the way, caster is there to ensure stability what happens is the car resists directional change because when the wheels are not in the straight ahead position the stub axle is pointing down further, this puts more weight over it and the natural tendency is for the stub axle to return to the straight ahead position, your front end also has steering axis inclination which combines with camber to make sure that the centre of the wheel is in line with a line drawnthrough the ball joints to the ground, if you change wheel offset you will affect this "scrub radius" something else to consider when changing front suspensions. Best practice is to mimick the installation angle the original makers used so you get the best handling, nine times out of ten your car will handle better just because the wheels are in front of the engine instead of over the middle of it. Ill shut up now, i hope this has been a help. Negative caster will make your car steer like you are reversing!

Rob

Hi Rob,

The shop that did the alignment used no shims on the drivers side front wishbone bolt and only two on the back. On the passenger side they used two in the front and 3 in the back. I am not sure how adding longer bolts and more shims helps as there is more than enough bolt length to add shims if that is what is required. The shop that did the work is very reputable in our area with the hot rodders. It could be that I didn't explain my problem right but that is why I had it in the first place.

Confused in Colorado
Jim

Any ?'s love to help mine has an early mid 70's amc pacer front end works pretty sweet minial welding etc have photos if interested later George

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buy a set of off set a arm bars. they are easy to find. just about every clip is collapsed some. this is very common with cut and butt. the only level place on a clip is the rear portion that goes under the body. the 2 frame sides in front are different. bascicly you need to remove shims that are not there. just did this on the 56 big window.

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i believe this is the napa # 280-5523

Pro, there are a couple problems with using a Pacer front end now.
1) They are hard to find.
2) Parts are hard to find -- many are Pacer unique. The rack is a GM made one but the body to it is Pacer only. At least rebuild parts for that are the same as other GMs.

I'm assuming you made engine mounts for the SBC and didn't use the Pacer V-8 mounts. Those are hard to find now -- not a lot of Pacer V-8s were made!!

heres a few pics of my set up and no im not running amc mounts there unversial mounts with mr roadster engine mounts, the front suspension was a great fit and with minimal mods to the factory frame i would of went with a mustang ll but his one fit so nice was afforable and actually is built a little more durable bigger claiper, spindles etc, basically just fit this application real well, But your right ther not real easy to find i was pretty lucky, Its just alot of people dont realize these work in these cars and how well!

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Just quickly, my suggestion was one solution . As I cant see your front end I suggested the fix as I saw fit. Leaning back the top wishbone will increase positive caster no matter how it is accomplished, with shims or offset devices. Most alignment shops work within factory parameters and are not going to exceed normal shim amounts for OEM applications
Bye

Rob