dave1123

My thought exactly!

owtolunch

where have you found offset shims to adjust negative camber... ? Who makes them?

thanks in advance...

Tom95YJ

They are called offset ball joints

owtolunch

After some basic research & visit to parts shop here's the dope on camber correction... Negative camber will cause excessive wear on the inside of the tire and cause troublesome steering.

The camber angles on the Dana 30 front axle are non-adjustable from factory. Camber angle can be made adjustable with the replacement of the upper and/or lower ball joints. There are NO SHIMS involved here.

You can buy offset or adjustable ball joints. Both upper and lower ball joints are available. (NAPA, MOOG)... Some are set to address a specific offset either negative or positive in 0.5 degree increments... Another choice is to buy offset ball joints that are adjustable & are able to be adjusted from a positive 1.75 degrees to a negative 1.75 degrees... Adjustment is made possible by having an eccentric shaft relationship to the ball. Turning the shaft moves the ball connection either closer or farther from the spindle carrier on the end of the axle. When at the proper setting the nut is torked to appropriate level to lock ball joint in position..

So if you are out as much as a negative 3.5 degrees - you can deal with it by putting in both the upper and lower adjustable ball joints... you would set the upper at a positive 1.75 degrees and the lower at a negative 1.75 degrees in order to give you a net correction of the wheel camber to 0 degrees. This would move the top of the tire out 1.75 degrees and the bottom of the tire in 1.75 degrees with respect to the axle when viewed from the front of the vehicle.

So, short of bending the spindle carrier or axle tube this is the only method of adjusting camber on this axle.

On my vehicle the spindle carrier is actually bent & is out more than 3.5 degrees... this will necessitate a replacement axle from the junk yard i suspect... I suspect the previous owner made some extremely hard landings as the bend in the forged steel spindle carrier is clearly visable when compared to one that is in good condition...

Hope this is clear & solves some issues for some folks...

dave1123

Ah, is there an echo in here? I believe I mentioned a bent spindle carrier in the beginning. No offense to you. owtolunch. If the spindle carrier is bent, I wonder about the axle tube itself. It seems to me that in order to bend the carrier, it would take a drop of considerable height with a landing on the front wheel on a rock or concrete. Maybe a slide into a curbing? IDK.

BTW, I've seen shims used before behind the hub bearing. Not right, but it worked on heavy construction machines.

Willys55

as stated take it to a shop that has a good alignment machine, have them do a SAI measurement, not all alignment machines do this as part of the original "alignment check". It would narrow down the cause, and I believe the french dragon has the correct answer.

owtolunch

I replaced the front axle assy with a rebuilt... the front axle tubes were bent as were both spindle carriers... the right front was worse than the left. Whomever previously owned this vehicle had done some serious hard landings...