Camber plate help

[Bababooey]

I ordered some camber plates from DP racing and they don't seem to fit right. The spring hat and thrust bearing/washers are too big for the shock. I emailed them pictures and they told me to file it down. I doubt they opened the pictures to look at it.

Here's a pic of my problem. I'm to the point now where I'll just pay a machinist to make new ones if I have to. I've got about a month left to work on my car before we get 20deg weather. Any idea on how to get them to fit?

[Knestis]

I'd get back to the DP folks and say, "I have struts with a shaft diameter of [whatever] - can you help?"

Then hire the machinist.

K

[DavidM]

What's the rest of the assembly look like? I don't see how you make the shocks fit the hat without having some sort of "bushing". I'd send them back if the won't work.

David

[Bababooey]

Here it is off their website:

http://designproductsracing.com/images/118.jpg

I told them specifically what shock I had when I ordered. They sell Tokico's so there's no excuse to getting the dimensions wrong. They sent a spacer for the mount so they got it half right. It took a few days to even get an email response the first time. I doubt I'll order anything from them again. I've honestly thought about just selling these at a loss and getting some techno-toy weld ins...I'm not ordering rear plates after this screw up.

This just really pisses me off. I'm trying to get my suspension finished so I can get my car into paint in Jan. A trade school is doing it so it's going to be gone awhile while they work on it. I was hoping to shake it down next year but these vendor problems are a PITA. Someone needs to make an ITS 240 in a box like they have for Spec Miata.........

Now that I think of it, there's a machinist in our car club. Do you think a spacer that would slip over the shock would work instead of a whole new redesign.

[seckerich]

The spring perch should be cleared that much and should sit on the bottom of the slider with the needle bearings. If that is a com 10 bearing in the slider on their website you just need the sleeve to fit your shock. Do you have a picture of the slider you got with your kit?

[pballance]

+1 with what Steve said. You should have had a sleeve for your shock or they should have supplied different hardware.

[joeg]

Good Luck. Like Kirk says, find and hire a machinist!

you need to fit the strut's shaft to both the ID of the slider's sperical ball as well as the upper spring perch immediately below it.

In my situation, that means setting up the strut in a lathe with a centering support end for at least one of the operations. Sometimes you can buy the proper spacer to handle the slider/ sperical issue.

[Greg Amy]

you need to fit the strut's shaft to both the ID of the slider's sperical ball as well as the upper spring perch immediately below it.

Be careful; that's not necessarily the case. You need to ensure that the center of rotation of the spherical and the center of rotation of the upper spring perch are coincidental. If not, then you must have clearance in the top hat. Yes the shaft needs to fit the spherical, but most times you need to clearance the hat.

Draw it out, you'll see what I mean.

GA

[Bababooey]

Maybe I wasn't using the right terms. The hat fits fine, there was a spacer for that. The upper spring perch inner diameter is what's too big. It looks like I've got a solution though. The perches that came with the coilovers can be machined out to fit the thrust washers/bearing. They're also much more substantial than the ones that came with the plates.

While I'm at it, what's the opinion on weld in vs bolt in plates? I got the bolt in because people have said that cutting a hole in the shock tower weakens it, but now I'm thinking that the welded plate would be better.

[Greg Amy]

I consider "spring hat" to be the same as "spring perch". Now I really don't know what you're talking about.

But, if the center of rotation of the upper spring perch/hat is not coincidental with the center of rotation of the spherical in the camber plate, and you bush the spring hat to fit the shock shaft, you will break your shock shaft.

More pics. What kind of car is this?

[Bababooey]

240Z. The two pics show the problem. There shouldn't be any space between the hat and the shock shaft. On the pic with the two hats, the silver one is the one that came with the coilovers, the black one came with the camber plate. Look at the holes in the center, the black one is clearly too big, causing the spring to move around.

[Greg Amy]

Hmm, sounds like you have it all figured out.

[Mike Mackaman]

I run weld in plates, and prefer them because they absolutely don't move. The same hole is cut for bolt in and weld in, or very close to it.
One other thing that I have on the ones I make is that the slider is steel. The advantage of a steel slider is that the bolts are Tig'd in. With the aluminum, the bolt can back out as you try to loosen/tighten the nuts to change the alignment. This can be a royal PITA! You will see folks have a slot cut in the end of the bolts on the aluminum sliders. Lots of fun!!!

Mike