Jaguar Repair: My 1985 XJ6, lower ball joints, alignment shop

Question
Howard,

I am replacing my front upper ball joints and shocks this week, did the lower ball joints some time back. Just an effort to refurbish the suspension as a broad-brush approach as these parts are fairly easy to service and not very expensive. I know I will take the car in for alignment afterwards, but I am most concerned about the caster angle and thought I would ask you if there is a simple way to set this approximately at home. My manual lists spec as being 3 degrees, 15' to 3 degrees, 45'. Would you be able to say how may shims that means front versus rear of ball joint, from your experience?

Thanks!

Michael

Answer
Hi Michael,

I did a lot of series III jags and I never seen the same on two cars and most were not even the same on both sides, so there is no way for me to say xx number of shims in any place will get you in the ball park. Who cares, when you have to have it set anyway? It is not going to ware out tires on the way to a shop that has alignment equipment. Not unless you are in CA and going to drive it to NY to get it aligned.

The Jag shims for the upper pivot shaft to change camber come in 1/32", 1/16" & 1/8" and the 1/16" shim will adjust the camber by about 1/4 degree. Many of the cars I did had US domestic "U" shape shims where a domestic shop had set the front end last.

The Caster shims on either side of the ball joint are normally .0625" each and moving one from one side to the other will change the Caster by about 1/4 degree.

Any front end alignment shop can do the job. Just give them the specs.

Caster = 2 1/4 degree, +/- 1/4 degree Positive
Camber = 1/2 degree, +/- 1/4 degree Positive
Toe in = 1/16" to 1/8" toe in

If you drive on a lot of two lane country roads that are highly crowned you may want to tell the alignment guy to alter the specs a little to make it track better on a crowned road. If your roads are flat use the specs above.

Howard