[FC] toe in transaxle

[Bryan Blackwell]

Hi Ron,

I'm still confused about what you are measuring.  Let me try to explain:

Toe - viewed from above, this is the difference from both tires being pointed exactly straight ahead.  Almost always the tires will be slightly closer together at the front than the back (toe in).  This is what you are adjusting with the shims.

Camber - From behind, this is whether the tires are straight up and down, angled in at the top, or angled in at the bottom.  The factory setting is slightly closer at the bottom than the top (positive camber).

We'll leave caster out for now.

You can find some instructions on the net on how to do this, but here are a couple of important notes:

 - The tires must be level to one another within 1/32" - use floor tires to level the surface
 - Most steel wheels have a slight amount of wobble.  You must find two points on the wheel across from each other where you can measure accurately (again, to at least 1/32" accuracy).

As Bill posted previously, a good at home way to measure toe is to run a pair of lines over jackstands.  The lines do *not* touch the vehicle at all, they are parallel to each other and equidistant from the hubs.  Simply measure from the line to the rear of the wheel and the front, then subtract to get the difference.  Add the two sides together for total toe.  With radial tires I'd shoot for 1/8" to 3/16" total toe, both front and rear.

--Bryan

On Apr 13, 2010, at 9:11 AM, RON BLOOM wrote:

> I wrote in a few days ago to get some help to set the  toe in on my 62 Greenbrier. Been out of town a few days sorry I was not able to respond. What I was trying to do and I'm sorry I did not try and articulate  more details, So I will try again. What I was trying to do was by  starting at the rear wheel by putting the rope half way up on the tire. the rear part of the tire. Then going to the front I would at the same point on the  front tire half way up the tire, was to bring the rope in until the rope touched the front  of the tire in the rear. when it touched I would measure the distance from the rope to the front tire. This is where I got the 2.0 inch measurement. The other measurement on the right front was 1.75 not the typo of 1.34. This told me that my rear tires would be wearing on the inside of the tire on both sides. This also told me that I would need to move the front of the rear tire in towards the vehicle, which in turn would move the rear tire the same distance to outer  part of the right hand side of the vehicle. My thinking was to install more shims on both sides, moving the trans axle towards the rear, and by the way I did loosen  the rear motor mount. My wife read this and said sounds like i had  lost it and was thinking of calling me some kind of a nut. I hope no one out there agrees with her, on the other hand, maybe I do need some help....BTW this all started when I removed the 4 sp and put in the slush box.