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I’m having an issue installing these GC adjustable camber plates with the bilstein shocks. The threads on the top of the shock do not go far enough up to get the bolt from the camber plates on very tight. The top of the shock has a wrench-headed end which is not helping. The shocks came on the car and seem pretty old. Does anyone know if bilstein has changed that design or of a possible solution to get these to fit?
Thanks
Something is set up wrong, this should be a no brainer. It’s getting the nut off of the shock rod that can be hard. Post a pic. The camber plate should have a cylinder that provides enough “stack height” for the spring hat to clear the inside of the shock tower. That cylinder is about 3/4" tall, IIRC. I don’t recall that anything prevents that rod being pulled up to full extension so getting the nut on should be easy.
There’s at least 2 designs of that rod. Some have a hex outy and some have a hex inny.
Here is what the top of the shock rod looks like. The bolt is only able to get a turn or 2 tight on there because of how short the rod is. I was wondering if newer bilstein shocks have a threaded rod to the top instead of that hex end.
Are you using stock springs? Are you compressing them when trying to install the camber plates?
I’m using Bilstein springs and i’m not sure about the springs being compressed. The shop that is putting them on is having the issue. He said he has never put these on before. He said the bottom of the camber plate is binding with rubber spring at the top of the shock when the wheel is turned all the way.
I don’t see a camber plate in the pics. I’m not very familiar with the OEM shock mount because mostly I’ve just dealt with camber plates. Is it possible that we are looking at the rod going thru a nut and then you are trying to put a 2nd nut on top of the first nut? The pic really looks like the rod is already going thru a nut.
There is no “rubber spring”. There is a spring hat at the top of the spring. The top of the spring hat will bind with the underside of the shock tower if the camber plate doesn’t have enough “stack height” to depress the spring hat down. Many camber plates don’t have this “stack height” because they are made for springs that don’t use the OEM spring hats. H&R Race springs require the OEM spring hats so require camber plates with the ~1" tall “stack height”.
Here’s a pic of the top of a strut. It’s from my build thread 6 months ago. The stut top as bent in a crash and I had to weld a bit of hex wrench on it in order to get it out of my old camber plates. 
Note the threaded portion and the larger dia. smooth portion to it’s right. That smooth portion goes thru the camber plate’s “stack height” cylinder which is fastened to the camber plate’s solid bearing. The right most portion of the smooth part abuts the spring hat. Almost all of the threaded part sticks out the top of the camber plate, so there’s lots of thread for the nut.
sorry about that Ranger. The pictures are without the camber plates on. The picture was just to show how the top of the bilstein shock has no thread on the end compared to the stock shock which has a threaded end. Right now i have Bilstein springs and shocks on the car. The center nut for the camber plate barely threads onto the top of the shock because of the hex end. I’m still learning a lot about this car and my mechanic has never put these on before so i’m little help to him.
Then something is shoving the shock down too far, and that’s why insufficient threads are sticking up. Or there’s 2 nuts.
It’s not “because of the hex end”, it’s “because something is wrong just underneath the strut mount.”
Don’t know if you’ve heard this but Ground Control said each camber plate is made to fit a specific shock spring set up which when i ordered the part from bimmerworld it didn’t say anything about.
Ah. Maybe what’s happening is you ended up with the camber plates that are incompatible with OEM spring hats. That’s why the spring hats are binding on your towers. Won’t know for sure until we see your camber plates.
This should work http://store.bimmerworld.com/ground-control-adjustable-cambercaster-plates---e30-street-springspec-e30-p867.aspx Note reference to stock springs and SpecE30.
This won’t work (select e30). http://store.bimmerworld.com/ground-control-adjustable-cambercaster-race-plates-p107.aspx
i have the first set of camber plates. It could be the bilstein springs that i have on the car. I do have the spec e30 legal bilstein shocks. I don’t know.
This isn’t a complicated issue. Get some pics of what is going on and we’ll figure it out. Pics of the OEM strut tops isn’t going to do it.
will do. The car got put back together but i’m going to go back over and see if we can get some pictures of what is going on with it. The ground control rep said to send pictures as well because i might have to send the plates to him to get them fixed or modified. Thanks. I’ll be at Road Atlanta in August. I saw you on the entry list.
Ranger,
Here is a picture of how there is no room between the upper spring perch and the bottom of the camber plates.
[quote=“CGuthrie” post=67230]Ranger,
Here is a picture of how there is no room between the upper spring perch and the bottom of the camber plates.[/quote]
Sorry man, but it’s going to take more pics to figure out what is going on. If you want to press on with this effort, remove the camber plates from the spring hats and take pics of the plates from all angles. Then put a strut shaft thru the camber plate and take a pic of that from lots of angles.
I’m still not convinced that you have the right camber plates. IIRC the “stack height” cylinder should hold them higher off of the spring hat.
Keep in mind that you’ve described two separate issues. The spring hat hitting the inside of the strut tower, and also the strut shaft being insufficiently proud of the camber plate bearing. The former still sounds like insufficient camber plate stack height. The second sounds like something is goofed causing too much camber plate stack height. That’s a pretty odd combo. We’re missing something simple here, but the place to start is close up pics, especially pics that help ID camber plates.
here is a couple pictures of the plates i have. I have been told by a few people that i might possibly have the plates for coilovers only. The main issue from what the shop said is that there is not enough clearance between the upper spring perch and the bottom of the plates. If stack height was higher or a washer was used then the bolt wouldn’t have any room to be threaded onto the top of the strut.
I thought GC camber plates have the gold piece on top. I don’t own GC plates, but that’s what I recall. That means the plates are upside down or the gold reinf piece has been removed from the top of the camber plate and placed underneath by mistake.
i double checked with GC and the gold plates are located in the right location. I’ve even had someone tell me nothing is wrong and that i need to set the front camber to -3.5 then the spring perch will just barely clear the mounts. Feel like i’m getting no where with it.