Impact of Camber Adjustment on Toe

[Robert Rossato]

If I remember correctly, the steering arm/tie rod is in the front of the
strut for the 100.  In this case, increasing negative camber will
increase toe-out.  

Think of the strut pickup points as being a plane defined by three
points.  One point is the ball joint at the bottom.  The second point is
the tie rod end.  And the third point is the top strut mount.  The ball
joint and the tie rods are fixed in space.  Therefore as you move the
top strut mount inboard to increase negative camber, the plane will
pivot about a line connecting the tie rod and the ball joint.  The
result is that the back of the wheel will move inwards relative to the
front, or more toe out.  If the tie rod was on the back side of the
strut then you'd have more toe-in.

Bob

> -----Original Message-----
> From: quattro-bounces at audifans.com 
> [mailto:quattro-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of 
> mboucher70 at hotmail.com
> Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 5:58 PM
> To: quattro at audifans.com
> Subject: Impact of Camber Adjustment on Toe
> 
> 
> Last weekend I successfully changed both front strut inserts 
> on my 1990 Audi 100!!!  Thanks to all those who gave me 
> suggestions on here and in the knowledge base or message 
> archive.  It wasn't easy, especially in the heat we've had 
> lately, but with enough elbow grease, a BFPR (large pipe 
> wrench) and my newly acquired de Walt electrical impact 
> wrench, the procedure was a success.
> 
> I carefully marked the location of the camber plates as 
> directed so that I could put them back to where they were.  
> On looking at the printout from the last alignment I had a 
> few months ago, I realized that the shop hadn't really looked 
> at anything other than the toe setting, and had actually 
> given the car back to me with the camber out of spec.  The 
> printout shows 
> 
> left front camber at -.18degrees (spec is -1.0 to 0.0)
> right front camber at -.96degrees  (spec is -1.0 to 0.0)
> camber difference between sides .78  (spec -.5 to .5)
> 
> and I'm thinking that I can get the two sides pretty close 
> and within spec using a level and a technique I found on the web.
> 
> 
> What is the impact of increasing negative camber on the toe?  
> I know that it has an impact, and that the toe will need to 
> be checked/adjusted after.  But the question is, does 
> increasing negative camber (moving camber plate away from 
> side towards center of car) increase the distance between the 
> front of the tires (increased toe-out) or does it decrease 
> the distance between the front of the tires (less 
> toe-out/more toe-in).
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Charles