Install Ireland Engineering Fixed camber plates

[thedguy]

If you're curious how/why these work read the bottom I got a crappy little description

I have 2 ways of doing it as the first way was done to check clearances and things with my e90 spring perches.  Scroll to the bottom for the easier/cheater way to do it.

Jack car up, remove wheel and strut assembly.  To do this, you'll need:

• IE Camber plates
       This guide will work for both the fixed plates and the "street adjustable" ones as well.
  
• Ball joint separator
• tie rod separator, though I loosed the nut till it was flush with the top and use a hammer onto a piece of wood to knock the tie rod loose.
• 2x 13mm wrenches (I used a combo and 1 ratchet with a deep socket)
• 17mm ratchet
• 19mm wrench or deep socket and ratchet.
• an Allen key that fits in the ball joint to keep it spinning

You'll need to disconnect the sway bar with the 13mm wrenches, if you want to make this easy, use a jack to take take any loading off and the bolt will practically fall out.

The rest is just following the usual spring/damper install guides except where you do anything related to that nut on the damper as we aren't taking the assembly apart, just out.



Strut top/bearing has 3 studs in it, take a hammer to these and they pop right out.


Here's the camber plate, 1 side has studs shorter than the others.  The design of the factory bearing and this plate it can only be assembled 1 way (good for retards like myself educated by the state of California).


Short studs go through the bearing, some loctite and tighten 'em down.






I'm trying to become used to wearing gloves, but once you get used to working on things without gloves, the lack of feel is irritating.


Completed and installed


Compared to stock (opposite side of car though) notice how this one is centered and the new one is offset.


Now go get your toe adjusted as it should be pretty out of whack at this point.

The trick to doing this easier:
I took the assembly a part mostly to see how it all went together and for pictures.  The easy way to do it is to:

• jack up the assembly,
• disconnect the sway bar,
• remove the three nuts holding the strut to the chassis,
• hit each stud with a hammer if your choosing,
• fish the studs out of your spring perch,
• take all the screws/washers off the camber plate
• slide it into position
• install screws and washers, I like to throw a bit of loctite blue in here.

    When I did this I used 1 finger to hold the screw/washer on the stud while
    screwing it on with the other to keep from dropping things into the spring  
    perch, they don't like to come out of there.

• Jack the assembly back into place,
• Tighten studs down (I used a little loctite here as well)

put everything else back together and get your alignment (Toe) fixed and enjoy.

Crappy suspension design primer

If you're wondering how these bad boys work, I'll tell ya.  On a Macpherson strut front suspension the coilover assembly acts like the upper control arm.  There is also a lower control arm usually a single piece, more advanced designs use 2 links.

On the e30 we have a lower control arm in the shape of a boomerang.  Since BMW made no provision for adjusting the lower control arm, the only way to do any adjustment is with the strut assembly.

By moving the top mounting point inward we effectively increase negative camber.  On GM's and later 3 series you can use shims to adjust static camber by moving the upright where it bolts to the strut... e30's have the spindle and strut housing cast as 1 and not an option.

Some GM's (like the g8) can use an eccentric bolt on this mount and don't need shims.  A common lemons style trick is to wallow out these bolt holes and sometimes use eccentric bolts to gain adjustability for cheap.

The other trick is to cut slots in the chassis side of the strut mounts to allow the assembly to move (usually with some extra plate welded in place as well).  If you want to do it cheaply.  Adjustable camber plates use this same idea but AFAIK don't (generally) require cutting.