New suspension question

Today had the car towed to the garage to get my bearings out. Although I only went around the block it was enough to ruin the front bearings. For those that don't know I installed the bearing race over the bearings....he...he...he....I know stupid! But it all worked out. I ordered new bearings from CIP1 and should get them soon.

While there I changed the rear old shocks for coil over spring. The same that are on the GHIA. Question: Is it normal (because with the old shocks that one was leaking it wasn't like that) that the rear wheels with no one in seem to look as if they are toed in? I mean if you look at the car from the side it looks OK... but just a bit???? The mechanic had to use a jack to compress the shock enough to bolt it in. It's a shock for a '68 which is my car. I also have a rear torsion bar.....

New oil shocks in the front, WOW....awesome!

Mike-

Toe would be what you would see if the car had no body, and you were looking at it from above. Camber is what you see when you look at the car from the rear- negative camber is when the top of the wheels are closer together than the bottoms. A bit of negative camber helps in handling. Jacked up swing axle cars have positive camber, which you don't want for a variety of reasons.

If you have a swing axle, camber changes with suspension travel. That's the advantage to IRS. Good luck.

Mike; is your car riding a little bit high on the back? I also have a '68 and noticed the same thing until I lowered the back via adjustable spring plates. Now it has some negative camber as Stan says and it looks more aggressive when looking at it from the back. It seems it's a common occurrence with swingaxle cars although you notice some of that in IRS cars too.

To be honest with you it started to rain so I put the car inside and with the GHIA in there doesn't give me too much room to look. It didn't seem any higher than it was before. But the old shocks were worn out and I wonder if the car might have been adjusted to compensate for that and now that I have new shocks in well....

Also the shocks are standard coil over spring for 68. That's OK isn't it? A Speedster doesn't need shorter shocks does it? I also noticed that my torsion bar rubbers need replacing....oh joy!

I think Speedster fiberglass replicas don't need coil over shocks due to their light weight. Also, I forgot to mention that with swingaxle cars, if you jack them up and put them back on the ground they'll look as you described until you take them out for a ride; then the rear wheels sort of settle. It also happens when you put the car in reverse and then stop it. They get some positive camber and they stay that way until you drive them. Have you driven the car after the shocks were put on? If you need torsion bar bushings I've got some new Bugpack prothane ones for the inside (toward the chassis side). They are like urethane but more flexible and thus easier to install than the red ones, which are hard like rock. I bought them when I installed the right adjustable spring plate on my car, fearing that VS left the 37 year old bushings in. Luckily I found out they changed all that stuff so I didn't need to replace them.

I agree with Ricardo coil overs are a bit overkill on these bodies and what you have now is the rear end a bit higher than before thus the positive camber.On previous threads I have read that even heavy duty shocks are a bit harsh for the replica body and the way to go is to get an inexpensive more mellow type shock.whew hope that makes sense Mike.

Actually the car is not any higher than it was before and it was pretty low. The coil over make for a rather stiff ride. cool so far around the twisties, the car stays level. The coil overs are adjustable so really it just takes pressure off the shocks by using the springs.

I ripped the car around some corners and the wheels straightened out.