currently my car is sitting on the ground, weight on wheels, and engine/transmission removed. when changing out the camber plates in the cars current configuration, do I still have to jack the front up and put the jacks under the a arm? I confused on why jack it up and support the A arms, if its on the wheels. educate me please. if I can avoid jacking the car up, cool. if it has to be done then so be it. I'll do it.

 

The strut sets the camber, and the camber plate locates the strut (rod). If you remove the camber plate w/the car on the ground, the top of the strut will WHAM! inward until it hits the inside edge of the hole in the fender where the camber plate bolts on. Know what I mean? The weight of the veh is on the wheels/knuckle...and the once you remove the camber plate, the "pivot point" for all of that weight is the lower ball joint. Which way is the top of the wheel going to go? IN. Hard and fast. Getting the strut moved back out to roughly where it belongs with the car's weight on the wheel/knuckle pushing the top or the strut IN...would be a *****, and an injury waiting to happen.

Conversely if you jack the car and support it by the frame/body, then when you remove the top nut from the strut rod, you have removed the element that limits the downward (rebound) travel of the lower A-arm. The strut rod/strut/knuckle and lower arm will rocket toward earth in a very unpleasant way that will likely cause you a severe code brown....if not a serious injury or damage when the coil spring rockets from it's perch and the lower arm, out the side of the car.

Jack the car, support it safely. I would jack up the a-arm w/a floor jack -just enough to remove the load of the spring from the upper strut mount....then R&R the camber plate, then lower the jack and move to the other side.

 

Exactly right. The load on the spring will force the plate to move as soon as the plate is loose. Take the load off the spring and the plate can be removed or shifted.

When doing an alignment on these I loosen the plate just enough to move it with ratchet straps connected to the lift, which enables loaded adjustment to set the correct camber. There is a tool that hunter makes that slots into the frame to do the same thing as the ratchet strap but doesn't work nearly as well for the third Gen as it does other makes and models.