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Camber issue on 1990 740.. how to fix?

mattd1205

mattd1205

Active member
Joined
Dec 5, 2014
Location
Harbor City, CA
I took my 1990 740 to be aligned after I changed my tie rods. Everything looked good except for the camber on the front passenger side. Front left side is -.1 degrees and front right side is -.8 degrees. The tech suspects a bad strut tube since camber isn’t adjustable on these cars. He says the bushings look and feel good all around and that the control arm looked ok. Are there any other factors that could cause the camber to be this uneven?
 
Can't the camber be adjusted at least a little in these? By shifting around the strut top in the housing? (There is slop between the holes and the strut top studs.)
 
tintintin said:
Can't the camber be adjusted at least a little in these? By shifting around the strut top in the housing? (There is slop between the holes and the strut top studs.)
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A marginal amount yes. My advice would be to look into doing the camber mod with a digital angle finder on a very level surface. Depending on your goals and setup a little negative camber (and more caster) does help the handling a fair bit.
 
Westmees said:
A marginal amount yes. My advice would be to look into doing the camber mod with a digital angle finder on a very level surface. Depending on your goals and setup a little negative camber (and more caster) does help the handling a fair bit.
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It’s all stock. I believe the strut was replaced before because it is an ABS strut and the car is non ABS. I’m wondering if the slop for the bolt holes would be enough to correct the camber difference. Seems to me adding .6 degrees of camber wouldn’t take much but I don’t know anything about alignment really. I guess another option would be just splitting the difference between the two struts. Does this sound like a plausible solution?
 
mattd1205 said:
It’s all stock. I believe the strut was replaced before because it is an ABS strut and the car is non ABS. I’m wondering if the slop for the bolt holes would be enough to correct the camber difference. Seems to me adding .6 degrees of camber wouldn’t take much but I don’t know anything about alignment really. I guess another option would be just splitting the difference between the two struts. Does this sound like a plausible solution?
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The camber mod is done to increase negative camber. You can get approximately -1.2 degrees camber by slotting the strut tower. So, if you are trying to match the camber at -.8 degrees, that mod will get you there. And no, the slop in the bolt holes won't get you there. You might get .1 degrees of camber change out of the clearance around the studs.
 
Westmees said:
If you’re running stock sized wheels and tires as well you should be fine doing just that.
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I am running stock wheels and tires. I just read on Volvo club that spec for camber was .1 degree +/- 1 degree. This car does fall into those specifications. I’m wondering if my pull is mostly due to the tires at this point since the camber is supposedly in spec. The tires have about 12k miles but the tie rods were complete trash so I’m wondering if they just prematurely wore out.
 
Update: I switched the front wheels from left to right and the pull is noticeably less. I looked at the strut tube and control arm. They don’t look tweaked but I’m guessing damage like that wouldn’t necessarily be visible unless viewed side by side with another one. I see that the control arms are the aluminum ones. Are they inherently weaker than the steel ones and are they interchangeable?
 
There is such a thing as tire bias. I’ve seen this with brand new tires before. Usually the cheaper brands will increase the odds of this happening
 
Definitely check for a bent strut tube. Also check that arm between the chassis and the control arm is the same length side to side. There were some differences in length there, but usually caster will be affected as well.

I went down that road, found my right spindle had too much camber somehow.
 
The camber mod is easy to do, just take off the bolts and raise the car a bit so the strut drops down below the metal and grind the front one in a bit. I 'think' 5-6 mm would be more than enough.
The aluminum arms were on the older cars, I believe they are the same dimensions. My friend swapped his steel one for the lighter alu ones and noticed no discernable difference.
 
Op what size strut rods are you using and what wheels? Are the bushings good?

Camber mod almost always solves this issue you are having.
 
gsellstr said:
Definitely check for a bent strut tube. Also check that arm between the chassis and the control arm is the same length side to side. There were some differences in length there, but usually caster will be affected as well.

I went down that road, found my right spindle had too much camber somehow.
Click to expand...

I looked and didn’t see anything obvious.
 
240 240 said:
Op what size strut rods are you using and what wheels? Are the bushings good?

Camber mod almost always solves this issue you are having.
Click to expand...

I don’t know on the strut rods. I’d have to measure them. I do have regular steelies on the car. I was actually thinking of doing the camber mod just to get it going down the road straight until I can really go through it. Thing is the bushings are in good shape and there aren’t any clunks or rattles so I’m kinda hesitant to really disturb anything so the camber mod kinda seems like the ideal solution for right now.
 
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