Gne 1 suspension upgrade whacked camber numbers like...8 degrees

['round n' back again]

completed my gen 2 suspension upgrade today . this has been a slow process..even for me.
changed my mind several times , lost my mind a few more times, thought about packing a few essentials and moving to the islands ,,,usual stuff.

finally finished today and not in a pleasant way.
im just under 10 degrees as measured at the hub with an angle finder positive camber . My rig looks like mr mcgoo's.

Solutions? sugggestions?
other than moving to the islands.

here are mine.

this might be a good time to buy the parts from keyser that i need to build my own upper control arms.

or for now (meaning forever) just block the back of the mounting jig on the frame with 3/4" of steel block to space back the upper control arm, which of course will present its own difficulties; especially droop travel.


help?
or am i beyond help?

further : unless you are really set on this "upgrade" or like me, the gen 1 parts are obsolete, then avoid this activity .

its a buggy or a wheeler mod, but impractical for the street driven daily, as the complication at least in my case, is hardly worth the trouble.
this upgrade also loses you the caster adjustment you had with the gen 1.
i believe i will go back to the gen 1 lower arm, and a custom upper arm using the replaceable gen 2 ball joint.

 

[IncorpoRatedX]

Check the FSM (regarding Gen 2) for camber adjustment, you're likely missing all of your upper shims. they go between the cross bar and the frame mount.

 

['round n' back again]

upper shims in place , migrated from old mount.
will be fabing some from 1/2 inch plate today to try get back into the neighborhood of proper adj.
just seems odd that the adj. should be so far out when transferring all the same parts as a unit.

 

[IncorpoRatedX]

But they're not the same parts. They change the front track width considerably and adjustments must be made.

Did you use Gen 2 upper and lower control arms? It would help if you gave more info on what you did. If you only installed the upper, you're gonna have to space it, a lot, to get it back in line.

 

['round n' back again]

sorry for the lack of info. i've been keeping a running monologue on another thread about misadventures I've been having.

i took, or planned to take the entire front suspension, steering and differential from a 94 sr series.

i was successful in getting the gen 2 suspension and the steering installed on a gen 1 with little mishap. just annoying modifications. the differential is for another time.
the uca/lca were matched sets from the 94 and i installed triple 555 components. tie rods are mitsubishi. gen 2 steering knuckle to match the control arms.

UPDATE; just got back from the shop
with a fab'd shim of 1 inch plate, i was able to get a static reading of 1.5 degree negative. I've yet to drive this and will have better knowledge after i do so
i may have to tack weld or thread that shim in, its is a lot of steel ...

as it happens droop travel is unaffected with heavy shimming...

 

['round n' back again]

As a general rule i would not recommend this upgrade to any without very confident mechanical skills and a willingness to experiment and develop the idea fully. You will need patience, a real concrete reason to do this and the skill to learn about and experiment with vehicular suspensions and alignment. This is not a bolt and go proposition.
Example: once you get the camber realigned to near spec you will have to go around and reset caster and toe. not being able to adjust caster on gen 2 stuff limits your ability to get the suspension perfectly in tune. i have to live with what the gen 1 attachment points offer .
so i will never optimize my alignment.
again and again untill everything is in balance, you will have to recheck your work.
yesterday after building 1 inch shims to get my uca's into camber somewhat close to spec. and resetting everything, the 5 mile drive to settle everything, brought out the problem of uneven caster. one side more than the other and a different reading then when i left the garage.. so now, why?
Likely it has to do with uneven spring tensions side to side, body pitch, and perhaps too much or too little shimming. Now, that i'm into unknown territory as concerns shims, having started with 1 inch plate, i have to disassemble and retry different shims. my shims are so thick that i have to have enclosed holes for the attachment bolts to go through as i fear them spitting out if i only slot them.
this means of course removing the shocks to get to the bolts so i can remove the bolts to install different thicknesses of shims, and oh joy.... more experimentation and
patience to work through the details.

ive been a mechanic for way too many years to be ignorant of what i was starting when i did this swap.
i had a foreboding about this to begin with , hence my reluctance to get it done.
im now far gone and will likely be some days b4 its a reliable complete package. The alignment shops wont touch it when they learn that is non stock. Their efforts would only yield results slightly more accurate than my shop built alignment tools. if even that.

im edging closer to custom fully adjustable UCA,s and not very far from falling off the cliff and building towers to install coil overs out of a tacoma, if i have to build UCA's. Not what i had envisioned when i dug into this unruly mess to begin with.

So be careful. mitsu engineering is precise to a fanatical degree, and messing with it can cause you problems that may not go away - ever.

downside is huge
upside , in my case may mean a whole new idea for front suspension on my gen 1.
its nothing but a personal satisfaction to me , meaningless in the greater context.

 

['round n' back again]

again.
i was successful today in getting close to spec.
i ended the day with 5/8" steel shim, one side got 2 mm of shim additional.
the 5/8 likely will get a tack weld to hold it still.
it drives a bit better. wheels are close to vertical within a degree as measured at the hub.
caster is all messed up which makes the wheel twitchy at any kind of speed, but there is little i can do about this 'till i build my own arms, as the gen 2 arms have no slots for caster adj.
i am looking closely at a camaro uca with 7.75 inch but its a center mount ball. it has slotted spindle . all i would need to do is fab and weld mounts to the frame.

Alas. i was caught today by the union rep, and the dispatcher lectured me about my behavior. i had been hiding out , not answering my phone, and missing calls for work. So it looks like work for the rest of the year (sigh) and no more progress till winter next on my montee. (thank goodness , as this winter i made so much progress on my rig, that any more time off and it wouldn't have been drivable at all)!!
winter next is to finish this front suspension for good. likely based on tacoma components.
hopefully i get stationed in the Owyhee's and if i learn to post pics, will bore you all with the million miles of off road 2 track out there.

one last thing i want to get done b4 work starts, is i want to flip my diff supports so i can add the larger radiator and revamp my electric fans
stay tuned... for more mayhem and confusion.