1.5 Degree Camber Shim

[Kirby N.]

Hey guys-

Been looking for the dana 44 Camber shim 6" outside diameter 5 bolt 1.5 degrees. I have been having a rough time finding one. I thought you might have a source or have one in you parts pile. Its the one with a #12 on it.

Let me know if anyone can help. Thanks in advance!

Kirby

 

[Digger556]

The two main companies that produced those haven't made them for some time now.

Check ebay, amazon or poke around your local older alignment shops. You might try calling Specialty Products Company to see if any are laying around, but its doubtful.

 

[broncozx]

napaonline have some

 

[Kirby N.]

Napa has some but not the size I need. So does rock auto- but again not the size I need. Summit lists them but doesn't actually have them. I checked local alignment shops today with no luck- thanks for that idea. I don't know of special products but I will check with them.

 

[langester]

I have one but not sure what degree it is. It measures .152 on the thick side and .035 ish on the thin side. No numbers stamped in it that I can find.

 

[Kirby N.]

Thanks Langester. What color is it?

 

[langester]

Its silver now after bead blasting it. I removed it from a 78 f150 dana 44 that I was taking the knuckles out for my disc brake conversion. It was pretty caked up with dirt and grease, I scraped it off and wire brushed it looking for markings. I didn't see any so went ahead an blasted it clean.

 

[Kirby N.]

I am not sure how I can tell what degree that is. I measured a 7/8 degree plastic shim that I have and it was .11 and .25.

 

[Rustytruck]

To figure out the degree you need the thickness on the high side, the thickness on the low side and the distance between the 2 measurements and then you can figure out the angle.

 

[Yeller]

I have one but not sure what degree it is. It measures .152 on the thick side and .035 ish on the thin side. No numbers stamped in it that I can find.

I'll admit I cheated, used an online calculator, the angle is 1.12 degrees

 

[DirtDonk]

Cool. Can you get away with a 1 1/8° shim vs the hoped-for 1 1/2° version Kirby?

Did you post up what your current settings are already? What is your target camber?

Paul

 

[langester]

Yeller, thanks for the number. I don't care how ya got there, thats not cheating , I never thought about looking for a calculator online.
The shim is available if someone needs one. It will probably bite me in the butt down the road if I need one later. I won't be able to find it in my shed if I put it back in there anyways so might as well get rid of it now.

 

[Rustytruck]

The shed or the pit of dispair? I put some thing in there only to know its in there never to be found again. At least i wont feel bad when my heirs throw it all out.

 

[langester]

Right on! I feel sorry for who ever has to deal with the crap I keep just in case someone might need it! Ha !

 

[bigmuddy]

Maybe consider a camber sleeve for the balljoint. I bought some a few years ago but would being promoted for the IH Scouts.

 

[Kirby N.]

Cool. Can you get away with a 1 1/8° shim vs the hoped-for 1 1/2° version Kirby?

Did you post up what your current settings are already? What is your target camber?

Paul

I have a 1 1/4 shim in there and it is still about a 1/4 degree out. Thank you for everything but I think what I got is better than a 1 1/8 degree shim. I am shooting for 0 degree camber for tire wear. My driver is dead on. My passenger wore out the outside of the tire.

 

[nvrstuk]

I called the manufacturers who used to make/sell the shims (I was looking for D60 camber shims) and was lucky enough that they had some hanging on the wall next to their desk (no joke). The other company had some in the back warehouse... ended up with 6 of them... lol

Short story- call them and see if they have some old stock.

 

[DirtDonk]

There are at least a couple of members here that did not like the way zero degrees camber felt on the road.
If you've been driving it with at least one corner set up that way and did not notice any bad habits, I guess it's ok then. But we usually shoot for about half a degree to avoid that, and still get the benefit of running less than 1 to 2 degrees.

If you're still wearing out a tire with only 1/4 degree more than you want, seems like something else is at work here. What're your caster numbers? Toe-in?
Too much toe-in will still wear a tire on the outside too. Sounds like you probably know all that already, but it seems odd that with that little bit of camber you've got a tire wear issue.
The passenger side always seems to wear out much faster on our rigs for some reason. It's been mentioned, but not sure if it's ever been discussed at length.

Good luck. Keep us up to date on how you like it, and how the tire wears in the long run.

Paul

 

[Yeller]

In my experience I prefer 0-1/2* positive seems to drive the best and have never noticed excessive tire wear. I have an IFS truck in the fleet right now that is 1.5 positive, it’s as close as we could get it and it drives fine and tire wear is still good, been about 25k and I’ve never rotated the tires. Not discounting your tire wear just sharing my experience.

If the rest of the alignment is good tire regular tire rotation should smooth out any abnormal wear. Besides the total alignment on the front is the front square (parallel) to the rear? If that is out you’ll get some unusual tire wear but may still drive great.

 

[Kirby N.]

Caster is just under 7*. I do have a little thrust angle- which could be causing the wear.

I haven't rotated the tires at all on the front. The driver wore pretty even, just a little under inflated- wore the outsides a little more than the middle. The passenger wore the outside quite a bit more than anything.

I drive it everyday and want it to drive well and also wear the tires even. I am running 35" BFG All Terrains. I run about 1/8" of toe in. It drives really nice right now- just doesn't wear tires even.

Thanks for the help everybody. I did call every shop/ manufacturer I could think of to try to find shims. I was able to locate a 7/8* and a 5/8* so I was thinking I would put one in between the knuckle and disk brake bracket and one in between the disk brake bracket and the spindle.