Camber problem
So how much negative camber do you actually need.
Probably none if you just drive in the city and don't race the car through the hills.
All you are going to do is chew through the inside tread of your tyres and destroy them in about half the mileage you should get out of a set with too much negative camber.
Not only that you are going to get more of a skittish ride over potholes and rough road surfaces in the city because you have less rubber in contact with the road surface.
Cars with live axle rear end had zero negative camber. Cars can sit lower as they age, springs fatigue and other components change.
I had about 2 degrees negative camber on the rear and reduced it to 0.5 degrees to stop my tyres being chewed out.

Lack of camber adjustment in the manufacture of these cars is a big problem because too much negative camber as the car ages
means you will chew out the inside tread on your tyres prematurely shortening the milage a lot, that you would otherwise get out of a set of tyres

The only means of adjusting the front camber is with special camber bolts and washers to drag the front camber arm over a bit into the middle of the car to make the wheel more vertical,
ie less negative camber but those bolts limit the adjustment to 0.3 degrees and there is no fine tuning to make both front wheels to have the same camber.
On the front suspension the camber arms on the front wheels are below the axle and therefore you need to drag the bottom of the wheel in to reduce negative camber.

The rear wheels can be adjusted to whatever camber you want by swapping out the manufacturer's fixed camber arms with adjustable ones.
The camber arms on the rear wheels are above the axle and you push the top of the wheel out by making the adjustable camber arm longer than the original
You need to torque the new bolts when the car is at normal ride height (or where the camber arms would be sitting, if the car was normal ride height, when you have it jacked up)
By using a purpose made jig for the rear camber arms..

Front:
Swap out the old camber bolts for the new fluted bolts and special washers
Torque the nut to 120 Nm / 88 ft lbs, note:
Do not let the torx E20 socket turn, the bolt won’t turn, it is in a fixed position with the flute

Rear:
Before you do anything place a rag in the end of the spring arm to stop anything falling in to it
Chock the old camber arm with a piece of 90x40mm wood so that it can’t move, to get the bolt out
Remove the wood and gently allow the camber arm to spring up, this is the position under load
Now make a bracket to torque the rear bolts
Cut a 125mm length of 25x3mm steel bar, drill one 12mm hole in the bottom of it
Crank it in the middle as shown
Now bolt that in position and using it as a template, mark the position of the hole in the camber arm
Drill the top hole 12mm. Now you have the jig to hold the new camber arm to torque it.
Before fitment make the new camber arm the same length as the old so the new will fit the same
Then when the camber arm has been bolted in place it can be adjusted for the required camber
Torque the nuts to 50 Nm / 37 ft lbs (plus 90 degrees)

Tools needed:
To replace the front camber arm bolts with fluted bolts and special washers
8mm socket to drop the underpan down
Torx E20 socket
Long socket 21mm eg spark plug socket will fit
Torque wrench for 120 Nm / 88 ft lbs
To replace rear camber arms with adjustable camber arms:
XZN triple square size 12
Socket 18mm
Combination spanner 18mm (open end and ring)
Combination spanner 8mm to remove nut on headlight level sensor attached to camber arm
Open end spanner 30mm for adjusting camber arm length
¼ or 3/8 drive bar for the XZN
Open end spanners 27mm and 35mm for locking the nuts on the camber arm
Torque wrench 50 Nm / 37 ft lbs (plus 90 degrees)

Plus the usual car trolley jack, car stand, bottle jack

Results after alignment:
My results are as I wanted my car set up
The red entries are just comparative to the alignment machine reference
The front correction camber bolts pulled my front camber back to 0.68 degrees left side and 1.07 degrees right side
The new adjustable rear camber arms made it possible to accurately adjust each rear axle to 0.48 degrees
The toe in is correct each side
The car drives like a dream with these corrections and my Pirelli tyres will last twice as long as before







FRONT CAMBER CORRECTION BOLTS











REAR CAMBER ARMS REPLACEMENT


















Thanks

 

What is the cost, roughly, to buy the hardware for these camber changes?

 

That is one way to do it for sure.

 

W212 front camber bolts ebay $62.40 AUD for 2 pcs free post
W212 rear camber arms Alibaba website $104 USD for 2 pcs, before shipping and tax (from O-Pass the manufacturer as per the picture)

 

I ve been looking at these same rear camber arms to offset the aging springs.


rear fwd upper link

I think the fwd upper link should be replaced as well to adjust the rear toe.


Rear SB bushings

Have you located rear sway bar bushing spares (not end links) ?
I've replaced my front SB bushings already... rears now awaiting.

 

Yes, one might just replace the sagging old springs before they break as mine did, new springs brought everything back into spec, this works too I guess