I've been putting some knuckles in the rear of my cooper, and came across something I haven't seen before.... small plates that adjust the toe of the rear wheels that I reckon were factory fitted.... there is a picture below of the plates.

most of you will know what I mean when I say crabby - it means the car moves along the road like a crab - sideways, and not on purpose, just because the back wheels steer it that way. I know of a few cars that do it, and the owners usually aren't aware. I followed Poeee's 1275 LS on the minis on the murray run, and his does it, and my mate Terry, whose Cooper S is to be featured in the next Mini Experience does it also...

Whenever I put a car on the road for the first time, I get a wheel alignment done, and I get the rear alignment checked as well - they check the toe-in of the back wheels, if one back wheel points slightly to the left, and the other points slightly to the right, or straight ahead, then the back of the car will steer a bit like a forklift. Here are some rough diagrams of what I mean - these are looking at the car from above, and the front is at the top - you can see through the body to the wheels, and the car is going straight up the page

this picture shows the right rear wheel pointing slightly to the left



so as you're driving along, the right rear wheel is pushing the back of the car to the left, you compensate by steering to the left, and therefore the car is moving slightly sideways - like a crab. If you're driving behind a car that's doing this, it'll look funny because you can see more of the right hand side of the car than the left hand side, like this - the car is still moving straight up the page, but the front is pointing a bit to the right. If you were driving the car, you'd have no idea because you'd be used to it, and it's such a small amount you'd barely notice anyway



so here are the pictures of what I found on my cooper - these are the right hand side - there are 3 plates, adding up to about half a centimeter thick, they go behind the outer mounting point for the radius arm, the left hand side only had a single plate - so the toe of both rear wheels of my car have been adjusted, and to different amounts

these are the plates (before I cleaned them!)


and here they are circled in red, behind the radius arm


I hope this was enlightening, if it wasn't then

I've been using the right wheel pointing left as an example, it could be the other way around, or both, or all sorts of things - it's just that usually you see them pointing to the left for some reason. It can be caused by all sorts of things, out of line from the factory, slapping a gutter the wrong way... you name it...

I've often noticed what looks like Mini's crabbing along, but then it appears to happen with every mini i follow. I worked it out a few cruises ago...

Because with all other cars they are fairly wide, you dont see the sides of the car when you are behind them. Also, most cars have a fairly uniform width front to back. A mini however, is wider at the front, especially at the roofline, and so when you're following one, unless u are milimeter perfectly in line with them, you begin to see a sort of 3/4 view of them. The illusion is highlighted because lanes are generally so wide that you can be on one side of the lane and the mini in front can be all the way over to the left and see straight past him. I've tried to show this graphically, hopefully you get what i mean but it's not 100% clear. I think a lot of it is illusion because you'll find every mini "seems" to do it when you follow.


As you can see, both wheel arches on the left side of the car shown are visible, yet the car from which the photo was taken looks in line with the right hand side of the car - that 3/4 view thing can be seen here. If you followed it like that it would definitely give that appearance.

As regarding the plates, my K doesnt have them, so perhaps a bit of adjustability was built in for Cooper S owners for trackdays perhaps

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thats quite interesting!! Do you think it was done by a wheel / suspension specialist, or a backyard mechanic?

Years ago I had an HZ Premier and there was this sort of adjustmentin the front end. Never seen the rear of a car adjusted in such a way.

Did you put them back in?

Misty - you're right about that, but they do crab as well, when I see a car doing it I'll often go from side to side behind them trying to see if it really is crabbing - <EDIT>follow Poeee one day and you'll see, you can see almost the whole right side of his car, much more than in your photo

JAM - judging by the plates, I really reckon they're factory, they're pressed, not cut - and of course I put them back in!!

They are a standard fitting, and as suggested adjust the toe in on the rear trailing arms.
I don't have the specs on hand, but the standard setup is for quite a lot of toe in on the rear wheels, and obviously it's important to have both sides pointing in the same amount (unless you're doing oval speedways and want a bit of stagger).
You can experiment a bit with the settings, the less toe in you give it the more twitchy or loose the rear of the car will be in the corners.

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Curly
'64 Cooper 'S' (Group Nb spec)
'67 Mini Marcos GT www.mm7056.wordpress.com

that's interesting Curly - my S is really twitchy at the back, maybe I should remove a plate at each side.... - I'll put it back together and do some measuring

interesting to see how tyre wear goes with added toe in..

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No longer Ms Westwoods mini outside her original kings road shop

I think this is whats happening to mine... my mini spun out when it was raining once (crappy back tyres + could have been oil on the road) and ever since then I have to slightly steer right to compensate for this.

Will a wheel alignment fix this?

The Leyland BLACK BOOK in the rear suspension section gives details of fitting shims ( spacer plates ) to correct rear wheel toe in. .040" shims will reduce toe in by approximately 1/16" .Vizard recomends 1/16" toe in for each wheel. My LUX has a .040" on the left and .063" on the right. When I got my wheel alignment done at John Lefflers he checked the rear for me as well.

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68 Deluxe. All the Options and Mods. Bling-Bling.

As said these shims were a standard fitting.
My red car `Ha-Ha' had a hit in the rear sometime in the distant past.
When I got it there was toe IN on the RH rear, and toe OUT on the LH.
Even with no shims on the LH side, I could not correct it.
Nothing seemed bent on the subframe or arm, so... I filed the hole forward in the LH bracket by 3mm, and welded then filed the back of the hole. This allowed me to add or remove a shim to get standard toe-in of 1/16" even on each side. I could probably reduce it a bit but it steers real well....

Before I did this bracket mod, I ran Ha-Ha with a little toe-OUT (edit... both sides!) at rear for a while. `Rear wheel steering' when it picks the inside wheel up.
It was OK fun for track work, but felt disconcerting if you need to do a panic stop on the road..

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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.

one of the more intersting threads for a long time. I have seen crabbing before but said anything, and as you say on runns only.
I camt say Morris does it, and well Marcia has not been driven. But I'll do some simple measureing soon on both.
I know I did not find any of those plates in the back of Marcia

I'd say if you were swing it throu some corners and you happen to go a litle ar on the side its crabbing to, it could be a little bit of a spin. Not good, get your tape meassure out guys, or get someone to check them properly
I wonder where you could get these plates from now

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Stop Licking the Dog...I Don't Care Who Started It

When you see a Mini from behind and it seems to be crabbing it does not necessarily mean that it is. Don't forget that the Mini front wheels are further apart than the back ones so when you follow one it might give you that impression. But yes there are a lot of Minis that do and the owners dont have a clue about the problem. So before you start gessing and making mods get is checked out. As it could be an optical illusion.

I was told today that all oz minis (or atleast all oz cooper S's) had their rear subframes positioned assymetricaly - more to theright - ie the rear right wheel sticks out further than the rear left wheel - could this be true and could this be related?

No need to buy them - they are simple to make out of sheet metal. I use high tensile aluminium (as used in light aircraft) because it's easy to work and won't rust.


I can't imagine why All the ones I've worked on I've tried to set up as square as possible, and like Doc mentioned some are way out. You'd be surprised at how different the handling feels with just a relatively small alteration to the rear settings - toe in and camber as well !

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Curly
'64 Cooper 'S' (Group Nb spec)
'67 Mini Marcos GT www.mm7056.wordpress.com