E Class A/Guarde ride height and camber settings

[230K]

Hi all

My 98 E300TD Estate has really cut the inside of the tyres on both front and back, right through to the wire with 3mm of tread left on the rest of the tyre. I am leaving it into dealership possibly later in the week but rather than spend the £150 or so and then realise i need new springs i would like to someone to measure the distance from the centre of the wheel (Star) to the lip on the front mudguard. I get 350mm exactly on both sides at the front. Also i have checked the camber with a spirit level with the car sitting on a level garage floor and am getting -1.9Deg front and -1.7Deg rear. Does anyone have the data for the camber? Would a low ride height caused by weak springs cause the wheels to camber out at the bottom, and would anyone be so good to measure the distance from centre of wheel to lip on mudguard at the front of their E Class A/Guarde.

Thanks in anticipation

Brian

 

[Dieselman]

E300 TD Avantgarde saloon. I think estates are the same.

352mm at front 358mm at rear, both on drivers side.

specs.

front:
camber left. -1d23m +-0d20m }
camber right -1d20m +-0d20m } difference L to R +0d20m

castor left +5d48ms +0d30m +0d 30m Difference L to R -0d30m

toe +0d10m tollerance -0d10m

rear:
Camber left -1d38m +-0d30m }
camber right -1d36m +-0d30m } difference L to R 0d20m

castor N/A

Toe
left and R +0d17m +-0d04m
Total +0d33m +- 0d07m

geometric axis 0 +- 0d15m

It certainly looks like you have too much camber.

 

[230K]

Dieselman

Thanks but can you clarify for the front left camber did you mean -1 degree, 0 minutes and 23 seconds +/- 20 seconds or
-0 degrees, 1 minute and 23 seconds.

I am away out to garage to tighten the wheel bearings to see if it makes much of a difference to the camber setting.

Thanks,

Brian

 

[230K]

Dieselman

Checked and adjusted the both front wheel bearings and took as accurate as possible before and after readings.
Driverside Before -1 Deg 27 min, 45 sec
After -1 Deg 27 min, 45 sec

Passenger side Before -1 Deg 42 min, 22 sec
After -1 deg 35 min, 03 sec

Interesting to note that neither of the two front wheel bearings had been adjusted since leaving factory (172K) they both had a spot of white paint on each pinch locking bolt, this is despite £3900 of MB servicing since new.


Brian

 

[Dieselman]

Sorry I think I must have sniffed something . All the above readings should be degrees and minutes. Forget seconds they are just tooo small.

Now sorted.

Hope that helps.

Maybe the ball joints and suspension arm bushes are worn at 172K. Raise the car and pull and push everything.

Use the deg, min sec spec as it think they may be more accurate as they are for an Avantgarde and are straight off the MB computer for an E300 TD AV.

 

[230K]

Dieselman

Thanks for info.

Over the weekend i will put the car up on the ramp again and check all again with a bar. The only movement i could find last night after taking up the slack in the bearings was a slight bit on the inner ball joint on the steering rack the one that you cant see under the gaiter but this would not affect the camber settings obviously.

Incidently my method of measuring the camber of the front wheels was as follows.
1 Park car on perfectly level surface with steering wheel straight.
2 Hold spirit level against the bottom of the tyre, insert suitable packer between wheel arch and spirit level to get the level perfectly plumb.
3 Using a steel ruler measure from level to the lip on the wheel at bottom and mark with pencil.
4 Repeat at the top of wheel.
5 Measure distance between two pencil marks (in my case 470mm)
6 Subtract the bottom distance from the top distance (in my case 74-60=14mm)
7 Angle of camber can then be calculated as follows tan~ = 14/470
therefore ~ = 1deg 27min, 45sec

hows that for a science lesson

230K