Kevin,
When I was rebuilding my suspension, the 4No. Bolts, 1/4” BSF securing the fulcrum brackets to the crossmember, in my opinion, appeared to be small for the job in hand. I upgraded these bolts to 5/16” BSF. They fitted in position very well with the flat side of the hex head neatly positioned close to the vertical section of the fulcrum bracket.
I can’t give you a definitive answer to the length of the coil springs affecting the camber angle but as the upper and lower wishbones are in a fixed position on the crossmember, albeit in a pivotal position and the outer extremities of the wishbones are secured to the hub, again in a fixed position; my initial thoughts are no BUT as the four fixing points are not triangulated, there has to be a degree of camber movement when the wishbones are raised or lowered. In fact I went to my 410 and roughly checked the camber angle with a spirit level on both front wheels and they were near enough when the car was sitting on the garage floor. I then raised the front of the car to confirm my suspicions and as expected the camber angle changed quite a bit. My thoughts are that if the coil springs are too long, short, over or under strength, that can have an affect the camber angle.
When refurbishing my front suspension, I decided to renew the springs without having the existing ones tested for compression, despite them being the correct length. Once fitted they made a noticeable difference to the cars stance and handling.
Another thought on the elongated holes in the crossmember: my car had and still does have the standard washers fitted as per item 3 in the parts list. I would have thought Bristol would have used friction washers in place of those specified, this would have reduced the risk of the camber angle being pushed out of line due to the “occasional” potholes on our roads here in the UK!
Brian
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