Ive got an upper balljoint camber kit and i need it to quite slipping. Since im 100% happy with the height of the car can i weld the kit in place for some never-slipping-camber fun?

If i upgrade my wheels to wider and/or smaller ones down the road would this screw me over? am i just an idiot? thanks.

 

The balljoint itself is slipping? Most of the time on these types of kits, like the SPC, the pressed-in plate is the problem. If the balljoint is slipping you just tighten it down. It's probably because someone didn't have the right tool to tighten it down enough when they did the alignment. It's hard to get a normal wrench (7/8 on the SPC) up in the wheel well even with the suspension at full droop. I use a 7/8 crows foot and a flexible ratchet.

But yeah, weld away. If you go to bigger rims, you might want more negative camber to fit them in, but big rims are ridiculous anyways. Rim size doesn't affect alignment.

 

ive got 17's now and i dont want any larger in diameter, i meant thicker meaty tarmac grabbers.

The camber kit uses an allen wrench, which is gay caus allens always get stripped out eventually

 

bump for any other opinions

 

If this car was in my shop, I would get a correctly working balljoint and replace the unit. You wouldnt want that thing to slip out of place during a hard turn. Of course you could weld it in place, but youa nswered your own question, yes you would need to replace it anyway if you needed future adjustment.

 

I'd worry that the heat from welding would make all the grease leak out of the ball joint?

I'd try a diff't camber kit or, modify this one to work better w/o welding it.

 

hey thats a really good point about the grease/rubber.

I was thinking about getting a couple bolts that would fit on either side of the existing bolt, and bolting them 'around' the current bolt. this way it would have to where to slide. kinda ghetto though, so i dunno.

come to think of it though, there arent really many camber kits (even the nice ones) that dont seem to be some ghetto rigged way to push your wheels out.

 

This is a common problem with camber kits, I know what you are talking about and I'm surprised that it doesn't seem to have been mentioned before.
Lets use this pic for reference..

What usually happens is that gold-colored plate with the four screws attached to it is jarred loose, and will slide around. What you are thinking of doing (if I understand you correctly) is putting two bolts, one through the "n" in Skunk2 and one through the opposite side to keep that plate in place, right?
I spoke with my agent in Taiwan, who noted the same problem, and suggested the same solution. My fear (and his) were that putting holes through those sections of the camber kit would reduce its structural integrity, and that you'd also have two bolts sticking out either side which isn't cosmetically pleasing. A possible solution is fitting hard rubber grommets to the plate, where the 4 screws connect. So you'd have a rubber ring between the moveable plate and the camber kit itself. In theory, this should be enough to keep it from jarring loose, but we haven't tested it yet.

 

are the bolts themselves lossesning allowing the balljoint to move? cuz you could just use some heavy duty thread locker... if you cant get the bolts tight enough using the allen heads go the the harware store and pick up some hard hex head bolt that will fit ... allens suck!

 

That might be an alternative, but it would defeat the purpose of the adjustable camber kit
It could be possible once you're in this guy's situation though. I believe its both the bolts gradually loosening, and the plate itself being jarred loose.

 

I would look at those washers with a whole circle of tiny teeth bent up on both sides, not just regular lock washers.

N

 

well the upper part bolts into the lower part ...... umm kinda hard to explain. Ive tried locktite.

Im really surprised this hasnt come up a hundred time. I searched but couldnt find any thing and put on my army helmet in preperation for some serious flaming, guess i was wrong.

let me try and get some pictures to illustrate whats going on.

 

I haven't had any problems with slipping yet, and I adjust mine all the time as they are on a race car and constantly ******* with camber and trying different tires. But heres my preventative solution:

1) Grind the powdercoat off of BOTH sides of the mounting point for the balljoint. The bare steel gives a much higher cf.

2) Use star washers on the top surface. These even help during adjustment so the BJ doesn't slip around while you're trying to tighten it.

3) Replace the SHCS's with hex bolts. They are easier to find in high grade, they can be torqued harder, and most importantly make adjustment MUCH easier. For those with short stroke/low droop suspensions, there is not much room up there in the shock tower. It's a lot easier to get the box end of a small 10mm wrench over a hex bolt then to spin a socket head cap screw with and alan wrench. Some people cut holes in the shock towers to access the bolts.

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The set screws I tried in this picture seemed like a good idea, but they weren't all that practical. I used a nylon locknut on the insides, which wouldnt sit flush since the holes are too close to the top. Also, depending on how much camber adjustment you need, the outside set screw witll hit the pinchweld in the wheel well and get bent anyway. There is probably only 8mm clearance there, so you need a bolt thats the perfect length for your desired camber setting, again not practical.

Those set screw holes are not the easiest things to do either, they have to be drilled and tapped perfectly straight so the screws will hit the BJ without slipping off, I had to use a fixture to drill and a tapping fixture becuase of the awkward shape of the UCA. Maybe you could get away without a locknut on the inside and just use the threads on the UCA itself but, it wouldn't be very strong. The inside bolt is nearly impossible to reach also with suspension installed.

Not worth it if you need the ability to adjust camber quickly.... and like I said I've removed all the set screws and haven't had any slipping problems yet. I usually overtorque the bolts, and I think I broke one so far but theyre cheap so I just carry spares.

 

well, if someone would make one that works like that in the first place, then we'll be set.

 

I would contact the manufacturer to get it replaced, unless it is a skunkworks part, they have no warranty.

 

heres a pic of mine. Its not very good, but all i cant find at the moment. your looking at it from the side, with tthe top O part being the part that was pounded into the hole for the balljoint.