Corner weighting woes

[murphy]

now that you have a fully adjustable suspension set up don't forget to have the alignment shop do a corner weight on your car. Most who get full coil over and mounts forget to do that.

[MattR]

Oh yeah, cornerweighting will be done as well. I can;t wait to get this thing totally dialed in. I've beeen running it as is, but now I can finally put it all in order.

I should have time to get it all done this week.

[murphy]

let me know how much the corner weight cost to get done. I will be needing that done to my toy once its done as well.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by MattR

Oh yeah, cornerweighting will be done as well. I can;t wait to get this thing totally dialed in. I've beeen running it as is, but now I can finally put it all in order.

Originally Posted by murphy

let me know how much the corner weight cost to get done. I will be needing that done to my toy once its done as well.

I thought you guys had scales up there from SCCA or something you could use? It's not difficult, if you have access to scales you should do it yourself to save some change.

[Kevin M]

Scales yes, dead-level place to park a car, no.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by BAN SUVS

Scales yes, dead-level place to park a car, no.

Umm, pretty much any paved surface works just fine. Scales need to be leveled no matter where you are setting them up. Use a laser or water level, paying close attention to the diagonal pads. We use ~1/16" shims for the pads, that's close enough for good repeatability.

[Kevin M]

Yeah... that's like, work and stuff...

[sperry]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

Umm, pretty much any paved surface works just fine. Scales need to be leveled no matter where you are setting them up. Use a laser or water level, paying close attention to the diagonal pads. We use ~1/16" shims for the pads, that's close enough for good repeatability.

I had 'em in my garage and spent like 8 hours and never got 'em level. Used the laser level and what not as well.

The big problem I think is trying to use wood to level the scales... that shit compresses. Plus in my garage it's about 4" lower near the door than near the front of the garage, so that's a lot of shit to stack up to get it level.

What we really need is that kick-ass leveling rig that uses a bunch of screw-jack things to level the scales. Too bad it costs almost as much as the scales themselves!

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by sperry

I had 'em in my garage and spent like 8 hours and never got 'em level. Used the laser level and what not as well.

The big problem I think is trying to use wood to level the scales... that shit compresses. Plus in my garage it's about 4" lower near the door than near the front of the garage, so that's a lot of shit to stack up to get it level.

8 hours?? WTF over? What was the problem? I've done a 3-4" F/R disparity before, you just have to use 1/2" wood board or something as the coarse adjustment to get the back pads most of the way up, and then use your metal shims as the fine adjustment. Even the 3-4" setup only took like 30-45 minutes.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

8 hours?? WTF over? What was the problem? I've done a 3-4" F/R disparity before, you just have to use 1/2" wood board or something as the coarse adjustment to get the back pads most of the way up, and then use your metal shims as the fine adjustment. Even the 3-4" setup only took like 30-45 minutes.

I've got no metal shims. Plus there was the lack of parking brake, so I was constanly fighting with keeping the car on the pads, and at one point the car actually rolled off the pads and crashed into the closed garage door, bending the door a little and putting a nice deep gouge in my rear bumper skin.

It was a shitty night.

Once I got the car "level", I made some adjustments to the suspension to jack the weight, and I *know* I was raising the correct corner, and when I set it all back down, nothing had changed. So I did it again, raising that corner a full inch, and when I set it down, it had changed the wrong way. At that point, I decided my scales weren't set up well enough to get the job done accurately, so I reset the car to normal ride height, and gave up.

All I got out of all that work is that my car weights exactly 3300 lbs w/ me and 1/2 a tank of gas in it. 'Course now I've got a new motor, so who knows what that'll do to the weight... should be close to the same.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

That is a shitty night.

Three points to remember for scaling:

1. Pads must be level - in my opinion at least within 1/8", 1/16" is preferable.
2. Car absolutely must be rolled off and back on the pads anytime the car is jacked up to make an adjustment. Otherwise stiction in the suspension will mess with the readings.
3. If repeatability is a problem, or you're getting readings that seem wrong, it also helps to have something under the tires which prevents bind & side loading; a few layers of newspaper, or a stainless steel shim between the tire & the pad which will let the tires slip.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

That is a shitty night.

Three points to remember for scaling:

1. Pads must be level - in my opinion at least within 1/8", 1/16" is preferable.
2. Car absolutely must be rolled off and back on the pads anytime the car is jacked up to make an adjustment. Otherwise stiction in the suspension will mess with the readings.
3. If repeatability is a problem, or you're getting readings that seem wrong, it also helps to have something under the tires which prevents bind & side loading; a few layers of newspaper, or a stainless steel shim between the tire & the pad which will let the tires slip.

I was using the old greased up plastic bags trick that seems to work pretty well for alignment changes.

Rolling the car on/off was a nightmare due to the tower of wood necessary to get the back of the car level w/ the front.

Basically, I needed a flatter location so I could easily roll the car on/off the scales with the supplied ramps.