[T3] Vehicle height

[Mark Seaton <Markse@mo-sys.com>]

<x-flowed>I just had a new set of tyres fitted and the fitter asked me why my rear 
wheels are so splayed out. This got me thinking that I should really try 
to get to the bottom of this negative camber issue once and for all.(my 
old tyres were very much worn on trhe inside edges)
Its a '73 fasty so IRS. I did a bit of googling and found a few opinions 
on the causes. Shad Laws already stated that he beleived it to be 
twisted diagonal arms. Other opinions from the buggy crowd are that it 
is usually the torsion tube that bends in the middle- I checked mine and 
it looks OK, maybe a bit bent in the middle towards the back, but not 
noticeably downwards as would be needed to create negative camber.
Last year I replaced the rubber donuts on the spring plate and adjusted 
the angle of the plates 1 spline more (higher), following the directions 
in the Haynes manual.
I also read somewhere that VW used softer torsion bars on the IRS cars 
to improve road hugging.
So I'm wondering, before I try to replace the swing arms as has already 
been suggested to me here, is it possible that there was a different 
setting for the cars that might have had softer torsion bars that is not 
covered in the haynes? Or more to the point, is there a way to check the 
vehicle height to see if the bars are softened and need a bit more 
pre-loading, or scrapping for some stiffer ones?

Thanks in advance,

Mark Seaton

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