The springs do settle over the years and give a definite list to the left (or
a more conservative direction for the home market cars).
Something that you guys never have to do but that is necessary for racing is
to corner weight the car. By weighing each corner independently, you see how
much weight each suspension set is dealing with and try to equal it all out.
Believe me, if the two sides of your car have the weight at a given end of
the car divided equally between them, it is sheer happenstance! You would be
amazed at how far out they can be, side to side, and how much playing around
it takes to set them up. And then there is the driver's weight, but we won't
talk about that!
Even for the street you either have to ignore it or start with a complete set
of new springs and go from there. But I guess there are worse things than
having your car go through life looking like a partially intoxicated bear, or
like the one I saw recently that not only listed to port, but also was
veered several degrees to one side even when proceeding in a straight line,
giving more of a drunken crab impression.
If you think MGs are fun, you'd love my TVR. When I rebuilt it as a race car,
I cut the body off the frame (it was bonded on, promoting rust), and after
the repair bolted it back on, and also at the same time removed and modified
the front and rear suspension. The frame shop that I took it to align the
suspension was a bit befuddled, as there was no live axle to start from, and
I told them not to use the body as a guide, so they didn't have a starting
point at all. They did one end, then the other, then back again and finally
got an acceptable result, but swore never to let a TVR in on an alignment
'special' again (the had a promotional deal on, and also a laser alignment
rack, which is why I had chosen them.)
Bill S.
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