The 1/16" toe is total, measured across front and back.
But... it is NOT measured at the tread (according to the BMC specs) although we all do it..
It is supposed to be-
"...measured on a 15-1/2" circle (on the sidewall of the tyre) at a height of 9.4" above the ground".
Anybody here do it like this??

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

It is gettimg hard to find a place that can deal with 10 inch rims. most of the modern machines won't do it and most palces are to lazy to figure out how to do it properly, there are a few good ones still out there and if your car is fitted with adjustable suspension it pays to find them. its very rare to find a good wheel aligner working for a tyre service, they are fine for the normal toe check but as a rule not good for setting up a car from scratch, specially some thing like a mini that is out of there norm, it sounds like the guy tried his best if he spent 2 hours so he might be better than most

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Roundies and Clubbies(except vans) are both ugly that is why I have Midas and a van
1293 Mini Midas Bronze,1275 Clubman van

I've had a couple of wheel alignments done on fully adjustable minis, the worst one took just under 2 hours at my current fav place.

Free plug for a business that still cares - North Terrace Tyres

i got to get mine done next up.. hope they can do it..

yo matt who does good ones in the bris area?

hee hee,,, now don`t get me started on setting for a speedway mini there`s not enough time in the day & not enough band width (whatever that is)

& we are all set up for basically "any" wheel/tyre size,,, we spent quite a bit of time over the years making all sorts of stuff to be able to suit any car on the wheel alignment machine,,, even all thos stoopid ricer things that are set on the deck with stoopid ared body kits & massive overhangs that "initially" made for a right pain in the-Ar$e to even get the damn piece of sh!t car onto the machine without ripping the stoopid-arsed front spoilers off stoopid arsed ricer crap

AHhhhh ,,, now i feel soooo much better getting that off my chest

& just so everyone knows,,,, More than half the so called "wheel alignment specialist" on this planet have absolutely no idea what they`re doing with regard to wheel aligning a mini,,, so be very very carefull who you get to do the job,,, they`ll probably tell you that they are the specialists & leave it to them,,, ,,, ha!!!!!!!!!!! yeah right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

The 1/16th is the total toe (1/32nd per side) and for the front it would normally be toe out and for the rear toe in........

IMO the sequence is right, but others may have another take on that.

Others here might also have advice on the caster that your using, but usually these thing come down to an inital setting and then playing around a bit to get what YOU want. And if you get real fussy, it would not be unusual to have slightly different settings from one side to the other......

Depending on the equipment they are using, after each adjustment they possibly should be rocking the steering wheel back and forth a couple of times just to get the tyres to settle. An easy one to see is say you make a camber adjustment, depending on the gear they have, it may flex the tyre side wall and hold this pressure so it is necessary to relax it. Most shops however have sliding tables for the wheels to rest on.

Also when doing the Camber Caster Adjustments on each side, I would have thought that they would point the wheel - for each side as it is done - in the right direction, then after caster and camber has been set, the toe in shouldn't effect the other settings - at least thats what I do......

But sounds like the guy took what ever time was needed to get it just so and then actually did take the time to check that it was just so......

I would agree 100% here Matt (why wheren't they factory fitted?? seems this is one of the first things most mini owners do), however (and I'm sure you'd agree) that the fitting of Hi-los is NOT a fix for knackered Donuts.....They are there to set the ride high, allow for minor mismatches and SOME normal settling of the donuts.

A good way to break a rear trailing arm pin is trying to maintain standard ride height with Hi-los and Knackered Donuts......

So, when are they Knackered???? When they start to look more like pancakes....When you change them out, keep the old ones, they usually come back to shape and like wine (whyne?) they get better with age (I think you put that somewhere else here Matt).

OK ..OK.. you're convincing me ... I've spent a heap of $$$ on fully adjustable suspension front and rear so I guess I have to go the whole way and fit Hi-Lo's ...right?

Matt PM me your prices please....

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David L


My greatest fear in life is that when I die my wife will sell my Mini and tools for the price I told her I paid for them!

yeah we`ve spent quite a bit of time over the years, doin R&D, testing & tuning sorting good "Packages" to suit the different applications, road soft,,, road/club use,,, & bitumen race applications,,, & dirt race applications

EG: the "Usual" hi-los that you buy,,, these are generally too big in diameter for the average road user , -->especially with old "Hard" donuts,,, Just think about it for a minute--> imagine old hard donuts, fitted with large diameter hi-los which have a wide radius edge on them,,, & you end up with a rather stiff ride (generally too stiff for the average road user) not too bad if youre using the car for bitument racing tho

however if you have "fair-to-middly" donuts that aren`t too squashed & aren`t too hard, then we can machine a set of hi-los to suit your wants/needs,,, a soft ride would be easy set with the use of small diam hi-los with fairly sharp radius,,, this creats a very similar ride to Hydro equiped minis, wonderful for soft road use , very comfy & also (funny enough) very good for dirt race application,,, But creats a whole pile of body roll,,, lean over in corners if driven "spiritedly",,, not so good for bitumen race applications hey??? getting the picture???

Now i agree totally with you on this GT,,, when the donuts are "VERY" squashed then it`s bin time,,, but we can sort decent packages using fair cond 2nd hand donuts & then machine the hi-lo to suit your application,--> soft road & dirt race,,, med road & dirt race with occasional club race,,, stiff-ish road/club race use,,,, & then very stiff for bitumen race only use.

It`s not rocket science,,, but it`s best to sort them all as """packages"""

Sooo,,, we can do packages for ride quality right? & we can set the ride heights with those,,, so where does the different wheel alignment settings come into play???

Ok,,, so lets say we have a stoopid stiff set up but we do some bitumen club race stuff so that`s all cool,,, well we`d fit large diam hi-los with gentle radius, set the ride hieghts fairly low,,, make sure we are not "ON" the bump stops , unless we have hydro or comp bump stops,,, fit a set of adjustable shocks like spax or Koni etc so we can have a play with rebound settings,,, then we look at the tyre we`re using,,,

Hoosier tyres like being set up "straight up & down",,, that is--> no camber, but we need some on turn in to help stability as we enter & go through mid corner,,, so we add some caster to the package to help sort a bit of camber on the turns,,, also helps with the slight body roll (think about it) but the hoosiers don`t need "too" much camber (they`re designed specifically for minis) so our caster won`t need to be more than approx 4-5deg-ish (most std minis are lucky to have 2-deg of caster & often they`re all over the place,,, maybe the left wheel has 1&1/2deg, & the right might have 3-deg,,, well,,, they can be anywhere really & usually are generally all over the place) But we really want to even things up to keep the car neutral for both left & right hand corners, so we need to correct/adjust them yeah? hence the fittment of adjustable control arms

but for road use we can get away with a tiny bit more caster on the left front, than the right which then helps correct the cars self centering because it alows for the camber on our roads falling towards the gutter,,,

Ok,,, Yokohama AO32 tyres?,,, well they like a big chunk of camber & a big chunk of caster, so maybe we start at about 2&1/2 deg of camber & maybe 5 deg of caster,,, then go out on the track/road & have a play,,, feel out the car & what it`s doing,,, is it neutral? is it understeering? is it oversteering & if it is doing those things then is it doing it neutrally , as in--> is it doing the same thing turning left & right???

But those settings are just a starting point,,, & that last one for the yokos is mainly a race set-up,,, road use with those tyres & you can back off the camber quite a bit.

so then we can have a "Play" with settings,,, add some more toe-in at the back if it`s a little tailly (over steering) ,,, maybe just soften the back instead,,, maybe add more rear camber....maybe just stiffen the front etc etc etc it`s all dependant on a whole pile of things & it`s a combination of those that we try to play with to creat a complete package to suit whatever the application... there are some quite solid "Known Quantities" tho,,, so we usually have our own "Starting points" already sorted.. & it`s all about testing the car after said "starting-point" has been set... in other words --> drive it & see what it`s doing,,, the old "Suck it & see" & "Horses for course" sayings come into play yet again

there`s ample amounts of adjustments avaliabe with the right gear fitted & we can do all sorts of things to suit all the different applications,,, & it all comes down to --> what you`re using the car for,,, what tyres you have fitted,,, how stiff the body shell is,,, & how aggressive/relaxed your driving style is (amongst other governing factors)

Just think "Packages" & you`ll be on the right path

Either way,,, it`s """Mainly" the Toe setting that keep tyres from wearing out,,, ((or makes them wear out)).... too many people will say that it`s the camber that wears tyres out,,, well that`s not quite true,,, it`s more to do with the Toe setting,,, too much toe-Out & you`ll wear the insides of the tyres rapidly,,, too much Toe-In & you`ll wear the outsides of the tyres rapidly

class diss-missed for the day
do your homework as there will be an exam on all this come monday

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

For cars fitted with a cage and therefore a little stiffer, what changes would you make from there?

Your thoughts on sway bars?

I've worked with the -2.5 camber, 5 degrees of caster, and about 3mm toe out on the front. What would you suggest for the rear camber/toe, on a Group N car running the Yoko A032R, on new comp donuts?

Well,,, the shell would be nice & rigid, perfect for a bitumen racer,,, & yeah your settings would have to be close to the money,,, sway bars are something to play with tho,,,

wev`e used some std issue K-mac ones,,, we`ve had a play with some "made-up" ones ,,, we once had a pair made by Ken at Accurate suspension ones (too big & phat tho, wayyy too stiff for our car tho) we`ve made some adjustable & had a play,,, but with most of the minis we used them on didn`t seem to help us much,,, but that was then & that was only a few of our own minis,,, not to say that sway bars won`t help you or anyone else, they offen do ,,, just that we`ve ended up taking them all off each time & found it fine without them

However my new sports sedan mini i am implimenting another set of adjustables so i`ll have a play with that lot when it`s finished & see what we see,,, but that`s now going rear engine motorbike power so it will be surely a whole completely different ball game

On the whole tho i think sway bars would help the heavier cars more than the lightweight ones,,, but that`s just my thoughts.

Rear toe???,,, well some guys like them straight ahead,,, some like a little toe-in,,, i like a little toe-in myself but with a wider rear track too,,, but that`s just me,,, (((seems to keep things a little more stable)))

i know a few old guys used to like some toe-out, but that`s just hairy in my books,,, too much oversteer makes for quite a nervous car,,, & i like them to be stable with just a hint of understeer,,, that way i can just "lift-off" oversteer when i need it , like if i`ve gone too hard into a corner & it`s tightening corner,,,,, but can also trail the left foot brake through a corner if im` going to hard but the corner is opening

driving style come into play here quite a bit, so , seems you have things pretty close now & probably need to have a little play with your bars to neaten things up, depending on the track,,, may like a small change here & there depending on where you`re racing

& i wish i did, but i havn`t had any play with any of the bitumen tracks down south so i can`t nelp you with them, sorry

Surfers Paradise (now gone obviously) Lakeside, QR & Morgan Pk are the only bitumen circuits i`ve driven on,,, hillclimbs aside

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

Matt, do you play with toe-out on the front? Or is it not worth it? Or is it a black art that nobody has ever played with and returned back from teh dark side?
When I was racing the Holden playing with the toe setting made big differences in how the car turned (or didn't turn)

I'm lost - who wants to do mine when I get all the subframes back on?

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Regards,

Mike
"He who dies with the most toys wins."

It is a bit far to travel but we could talk you through it.

When I get around to doing mine I will be doing a 'How to' using David Rosenthal's home grown equipment that anyone can make up. If you want to jump the gun PM David

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David L


My greatest fear in life is that when I die my wife will sell my Mini and tools for the price I told her I paid for them!