Camber issues and solutions on Spyders

Over on another thread having to do with uneven tire wear on front wheels, most of the discussion focused on the wear characteristics of Kenda tires with the solution being to replace them with non-OEM car tires and get a laser alignment. I had questioned whether all uneven wear patterns were caused by alignment (toe-in / out) or tire construction issues, particularly when only one tire is showing excessive wear on just one side (usually the inside) tread.

At least one other person had agreed there sometimes are off-camber problems that are not corrected by tire replacement or laser alignment. Many members believed either that camber issues did not exist on Spyders, or cannot be corrected because there is no built-in mechanism for camber adjustment as there is with toe-in / toe-out issues. But other members said that camber adjustment is possible with the use of shims, as used to be common practice with automobiles.

So, I'm starting this thread in the hopes of getting to the bottom of this camber alignment issue. Does it exist or not? How is it detected and measured? Can it be easily corrected with the use of shims or not?

Thanks.

I could see trying shims if a laser alignment didn’t fix the wear problem.

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Originally Posted by Highwayman2013

I could see trying shims if a laser alignment didn’t fix the wear problem.

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Wouldn't it be nice to be able to identify a camber issue before spending money unnecessarily on toe-in / toe-out alignment? Or worse, spend the money to replace the tires only to have them also exhibit camber issue characteristics?

On the other thread, Pete Aawen suggested the following in response to uneven tire wear on the inside of one tire;

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Originally Posted by Peter Aawen

As the Spyder comes from the factory, the only real adjustments you can make are toe in/out & if you got the adjustable pre-load spring/shocks, you might be able to fiddle with that a bit & change the static ride height a little too.

Does your Spyder have that screw adjust for the spring pre-load on your front shocks?? If it does, is there ANY chance that they are not adjusted equally side to side?? If the left hand shock has more spring pre-load than the right, your Spyder will be leaning a little to the right & loading up the inside of that RH wheel more.... Quick & dirty check, park your Spyder on a patch of level concrete, then using a large square sat vertically on the ground alongside each wheel so that it's short leg sticks straight out from the hub & the long leg is pushed up hard against the tire where it hits the ground & the rest stands up vertically alongside the wheel, check to see if the gap between the vertical leg & the wheel is identical on both sides. It could show that your wheels are angled IN at the top, or OUT at the top, but they should be close to identical or you'll get wear like that you've described! I'd expect to see the RH side has a greater lean in at the top than the LH side... And to fix it, you'll need to adjust the OPPOSITE side shock preload, ie, if the RH inner tire is worn on the inside edge & the top of that tire is angled in more, then you'd expect to need to slacken off the pre-load tension on the LH shock a little; but like I said, this is a quick & dirty check & an even dirtier fix! And it won't necessarily fix the worn tread problem at all, certainly not in less than about 5000 miles!

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Any thoughts about this possible cause and solution to off-camber front wheels?

I took a look at my F3L and do have some spring preload adjustment but I can’t see anyplace for shims.

The major issue re camber & making it adjustable on these Spyders/this design of front end is that the camber WILL vary with load & ride height (& toe in/out does the same, but to a lesser extent!) - the fixed mounting points on the chassis teamed with fixed length 'A' arms means that there is ONLY ONE height where the camber will be 'optimum' or remain set and the very acts of climbing aboard and making your Spyder move will be continuously varying the camber as the height oscilates up and down. :shocked:

So yeah, adjusting the static ride height can let you set the camber when everything is still, so can using shims at the chassis/frame end, or putting eccentric bushes/snail screws in the fixed mount points; but the second you put ANYTHING on your Spyder or the moment you start it moving (& therefore responding to road surface irregularities & forces) the camber will be changing, and changing with every instant the Spyder is moving & the loads/forces on the suspension are changing continuously.... :dontknow: Which means that all you are doing by setting the camber is setting it for your chosen static position, & that's ONLY with that load & at that ride height too! :lecturef_smilie:

If your Spyder is set up unevenly for whatever reasonable, so that even when you ride it's leaning one way or another, your tires may wear unevenly across the tread face; or if it's loaded unevenly &/or your adjustable shocks/springs are loading the front suspension up unevenly, you could be forcing one or both of the front tires to run with more or less camber than is ideal and eventually making your tires wear unevenly, and that sort of uneven leaning or loading may be correctable by varying your static ride height camber or adjusting your spring preload accordingly; but remember, to correct uneven leaning or loading on one tire, you will usually need to adjust the opposite side preload to even it up! And regadless of how soon you catch it, correcting that uneven lean or loading isn't all that likely to 'fix' any bad wear pattern once it's become established or visible anyway! :shocked:

Considering that it took 5000 miles or whatever for any uneven tire wear to show up, then putting everything in the alignment back to 'correct' (usually zero toe/zero camber/zero caster on this design front end is what's recommended) is only going to STOP things from getting any worse, cos setting it all correctly will just make everything wear evenly from now on, ie, evenly across the entire face of the already bad wear pattern, & it doesn't really matter how long you run it like that, it's unlikely to 'even out' the incorrect wear, just wear it more right across the face, but it will stop it getting any worse any quicker than uneven settings will! If you OVER-correct the alignment equal but opposite to however much it was wrong to start with, that is only more likely to wear the other side of the tire tread as badly as the initial bad wear.... which effectively means that it's really not all that likely you'll ever be able to correct or 'even out' bad wear patterns once they've shown up, & you need to consider that badly worn tread depth as the indicator for the entire tire & when to swap out the tire for a new one. Yeah, sometimes you might luck out & seemingly 'even out' a bad wear pattern, you more often find that on cars where you can swap tires front to rear & 'flatten out' the bad wear, but for that to happen on our Spyders the badly worn sections of tread effectively need to stop wearing completely, & to do that they hafta be out of contact with the road entirely, so you will be running on a less than ideal tread area.... do you really want to risk that much compromise to your safety & the safety of your passengers/the surrounding road users like that? :shocked:

Still, all that said, if you load your Spyder to its 'normal travelling load' (including rider/passenger) & first set the static ride height properly, then adjust your spring preload (if fitted) to optimise the camber settings & get your wheel alignment set properly at the same time, you are likely to get the best ride & handling you can from that Spyder as well as even tread wear. If your loading varies the static ride height from BRP's optimum much at all, the camber & wheel alignment WILL be out, & setting the toe in/out as best you can with whatever camber that brings can minimise the bad wear & handling; but from the factory, the only real way to minimise the adverse effects of incorrect camber is to vary the ride height as necessary, & even if you do that, it isn't going to mean your camber will be correct all the time - the front suspension & steering design makes that impossible! :sour: