[T3] Camber Problems

[Jim Adney]

Brent,

I probably missed this: Exactly what bearing was "broken" on your 
original beam, and on which side?

On 12 Sep 2011 at 23:25, Brent Bottolfson wrote:

> I've looked through the Bentley and seen the pictures you're referring 
> to.  I'm really starting to think something is bent, either one or more 
> of the control arms or a spindle.  With the way I have the pan set up, 
> there's no reason the angles of the steering knuckles/rotors shouldn't 
> be very close to equal assuming it's all straight and level.

I hadn't thought of a bent spindle, but you're right, that would do 
it too.

> I replaced the bare beam due to the broken bearing on the left side.  
> But I'm also doing a pan swap as well.  The pan swap is due mostly to 
> rust under the battery and many, many rivets holding in replacement pan 
> sections.  On that (original) pan the left front of the 'head' of the 
> pan where the beam mounts up doesn't look right to me.  It just looks 
> like the left side is bent in a little.

If it was a wheel bearing that was actually broken, not just worn 
out, that might have been accident damage. If that was severe enough 
to bend the left frame horn, it might also have bent the beam itself, 
as well as one of the torsion arms. You've replaced the beam and the 
pan, but you're still using the same arms, so I'm trying to think of 
some way to check the arms you have.

If you were here, we could probably fixture up things in a large 
lathe. Even if the lathe was not large enough to spin the arm, we 
could use it to hold the arm and locate a point as shown in the 
Bentley manual, then compare it with the other arm to verify whether 
they were mirror images or not.

The spindles could also be checked in a lathe.

> There's a somewhat local guy that has the parts I need, just a bit of a 
> drive.  There's also a Square at Pick-n-Pull that had most of the front 
> end still there.  I think I'm going to replace the control arms and 
> spindles.  At least I'm getting this sorted now while I have it apart.

It would be good to find a way to check things, because otherwise 
there's no way to be sure that your "new" used parts are not also 
bent.

> My question now is about the torsion bars.  They are out of the 
> original, broken bearing, beam.  They seemed fairly straight when I 
> swapped them over to the new beam.  Would they affect camber at all?  I 
> don't think it could be much, if any, as the control arms are basically 
> constrained to radial movement once they're seated in the 
> bearings/bushings and locked in place with the splines and grub screw.

I agree that the torsion bars should not have any effect on this. 
Your main concern on them should be that they are not rusty in a way 
that might lead to early breaking. That happens here, but is probably 
not nearly as common where you are.

I also have arms here that I'm pretty sure of, but local is better 
because these are pretty heavy.

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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