I searched for this, but couldn't find anything.

I just got my car ailigned after putting all the new suspension stuff in, they got the front end all fixed up to spec, but it still pulls to the right. Apparently, the rear is way out of alignment. Here are the specs on the rear:

camber -0.2* -0.6*
toe -0.10* -0.14*
total toe 0.03*
thrust angle -0.12*

anybody have an idea of what these specs should be?
my mechanic told me that I should mess around with the adjustable lca's and panhard bar, which makes sence, but i'm not sure how adjusting these would affect the different specs.

also, why do most of the posts have a left front camber spec .5* less than the right front camber? just wondering.

thanks

 

The .5* difference between the front castor specs is to account for the crown of the road. Almost all roads are higher in the middle of the road than at the sides, to allow rain to flow off to the side rather than collect in the middle. For a race car you want a neutral set up, and for us folks over here in the UK we really want it the opposite from standard USA settings. For strret use in the USA you really want the car to actually pull to the left (as seen on a properly flat bit of tarmac) so that on a real road it goes in a straight line.

If you can't get an answer on what they should be, then I would suggest adjusting the rear to be neutral ie. no toe in/toe out, and get the camber equal perhaps like the front at somewhere around the 0.25 to 0.5 mark.

Sorry that I'm no expert in this, but I'm in the process of trying to get my front end set up to correct a pull to the left (driving on the left here in the UK) - see european region post.

Simon.

 

The rear should have absolutely no cross camber!! The cross caster the previous guy speaks of is true but you only show rear specs.

It sounds like you are dogtracking. Your total toe is causing your thrust angle to be out. The thrust angle is the angle of the rear end. The rear should be straight across but yours is cocked to the left a little. You can't really do a whole lot about that except using shims. You can shim the rear hubs to get the camber and toe in. Take it too a good shop and tell them to order some northstar shims for the rear end. Then tell them to do a thrust angle alignment and set total toe to exactly 0. For performance purposes have the camber set at .5-.

What are you Front end specs. Hows the SAI and Included angle. Do they have the strut mount tool or do they use a hammer

 

what will northstar shims do to a solid rear axle?

he needs to adjust the LCA's

 

ad. LCAs will not adjust toe. They will only adjust the thrust angle itself. To adjust toe he needs to shim the hubs.

 

again, what will be shimed?

the only thing he can adjust without bending the axle housing is the thrust angle, he can bring the total toe to 0

 

ok well there is no possible way to shim the 'hubs' on a RWD solid rear axle. because there is no hubs. FWD cars have hubs mounted to an 'axle'. thrust angle is determined by the in divudual toe readings. so his left toe of -0.10 means the wheel is pointed left. the right toe of 0.14 means the wheel is pointed left again. you add the two together and you get the total toe of 0.03 ( -0.10 + 0.14). and your thrust angle is to the left to -0.12
once the thrust angle is set to zero he wil then have a left toe of say 0.01 nad right of 0.02. which will still give a totoal toe of 0.03.

and no the cross camber does not have to be zero. when the axle turbes are welded to the center section, they may not be exactly parallel to it. and over time these axle tubes can bend (albeit very little). or the car can lean to the left in this case and cause the camber to be higher on the left than the right.

now you can get the adjustable lower control arms to correct the thrust angle and make it zero. but i'll tell you this now. it's not the problem with the right pull. thrust angle alignments set the steering wheel to the rear thrust angle. your car in this instance will dogtrack to the left. but will go straight assuming the alignment is done correctly and all parts are good.

after this, there are only three things that will cause a pull. tires, brakes, or power steering.

mgilorma - please post the front specs so we can determine if the alignment is done correctly. then we'll go from there to fix the problem.

 

LOL. Forgive my drunken stupor. Not sure what I was writing. At least I spelled it right.

What I was getting at I think is that the toe will still be pigeon toed a little. LCAs will not correct that. Essentially your moving the whole rear axle, not each side seperately when adjusting the control arms. That doesn't change the degrees the tires face in comparison to the centerline of the axle.

The thrust can still be brought in by tightening the left side control arm. As for why its pulling, like said could be alot of things. Binding ball joints, binding upper strut mounts, and the forementioned. Is the pull always to the right?

According to ALLData though your Thrust angle is still within the limits so I'd just leave the rear alone.

 

ASE certified and a drunk- good to know who not to listen to for advise. Just another boyscout merit badge.

I'm seeing alot of this on this message board. Guys will ask for advice and someone will give them a stray opinion that can end up costing them alot of hard earned money because the advice was wrong.

 

If its just another easy merit then why don't you have any?? Wow.. I made a mistake. Shall I go through your old posts?? Oh wait you only have 9. I've been around a little longer then you.

STFU!!!!

What I gave was fact. The shims was all I was wrong about. I'm used to aligning FWD cars. Made a slip.

As for the drunk comment. I'm a college student and it was SATURDAY NIGHT!! Get a ****ing clue. I don't know why I was on my computer since I haven't been on here in months. But I was. No big deal.

 

O.K. Now I see who we are dealing with here. You don't need to get so pissy with your debate. But I see you are in college AND that you have been around longer than I, thus, tell me how that statement is true since I am twice your age?




Some aguements are better off not started, sorry to bring your faults to life.

 

With your glasses on!
I think you know what I meant when I said I've been around longer. If not let me rephrase. I've been around HERE longer. I have over 1000 posts. There are gonna be a few bad out of those dude. I apologized and then you come in jumping down my throat. Pissy, not hardly, I've only been doing alignments all day in the heat with a splitting head ache.

At least I can admit mine newbie!

PM me if you've got anything else to say. Its not mgilorma's fault you have issues.

 

Well mgilorma, my advice is that if you took it to an alignment shop for an alignment and it is not right, then why didn't you take it back and tell them to fix it again. You can not make an alignment adjustment yourself on the rearend with out it on a rack-. If you have rear adjustments, then why didn't they adjust them to correct the pull to the right? Is the car damaged from an accident?

 

today was a busy day for this post!

here are the specs for the front:

camber .4 .4
caster 5.1 4.9
toe 0.0 0.0
total toe 0.0
steer ahead 0.0

the reason i didn't just take it back was that i needed the car all last week for getting to school. I'm going to get the rear back to centered, because you can tell just by comparing how much tread is sticking out of the wheel well that the left side sticks out farther. The weird thing is that i HAD it as centered as i could get it with a tape measure before i took it in to get it aligned. so once i mess with that i'll prob take it back in.

basically I'm going to do what i did before, first adjust the the panhard bar to get the axle centerd as best i can. then adjust the lca's by comparing the spacing of the drums in the wheel well from side to side, then letting the computer and mechanic do the rest.

thanks for the replys, and keep the peace.

 

ok now i can solve this for you. camber and toe is good. the caster is the problem. the caster needs to be .5* lower on the left than the right. so, with the right caster being 4.9, then the left caster needs to be 4.4 this will make the car push left to offset the road crown. as it is now with the caster being lower on the right, it will go to the right. and with the road crown making the car go right, there is your pull.

remember this:

toe will not cause a pull because it will always be equal. toe centers itself.

the vehicle will pull towards the HIGHER camber and the LOWER caster number.

by the way, i own a suspension/ alignment shop. www.asbdcnow.com/tredalign and i own a thirdgen. so, take it back and tell them to get the caster on the left side to 4.4*

 

If it was me, I would ask them to go as high as they can get the Castor on the right, then adjust the left accordingly. I agree, about a 1/2* to make it drive straight. I like to set my camber a tad negative too. No more than a 1/2* though...

If I can find my print out from the last time I aligned my car, I work at a repair shop, I will post what my rear specs were. IIRC, the rear was similar to how yours is, nothing you can do really, won't hurt anything.

I guess you could break out a torch and start straightening the axle housing, but that's crazy...

 

they will not correct total toe. they will correct the thrust angle so the car will face straight instead of dogtracking. and yes they will correct the individual toe when looking at the centerline. look at it like this. thrust angle is determined by toe readings as i stated in my last post. looking at his current specs his left toe is -0.10 from the centerline. the right is 0.14 this gives a thrust angle of -0.12 now we bring the left side forward (or right side backwards) and his changes individual toe. which in turn changes the thrust angle. here's a drawing of what is going on and how it gets fixed. again though this is not causing his pull.


both scenarios still have the 0.03 total toe. but the individual toe readings have changed. which is what thrust angle is determined by.

 

I know what your saying. I know what the thrust angle is. And yes your right that it will change the toe on screen, but the toe is still negative(just the same as it was amount wise). Not that it matters and not that it will cause a pull because it won't.
I was thinking that by pull he meant that he had to compensate steering to the left which is exactly what would happen if the rear had a negative thrust angle. So many people get steering wheel alignment problems confused with a pull.

BTW- Not that it matters but he has the right rear toe as being -14* out, not +14*. The pic you show is right but if it was positive, it would face outward and not inward. So basically the right rear is facing further left that the left rear is.

 

yeah, my bad, specs for the right rear toe was 14* not -14* with an total toe of 3*

 

yeah, my bad, specs for the right rear toe was 14* not -14* with an total toe of 3*

 

well today i put the original lca's back in, and centered the axle as well as i could by eyeballing it. it still drifts right when i let go of the wheel. but i'm taking it back and telling them to do it over.

when i took off the adjustable lca's they were exactly the same length, so if they adjusted the panhard bar out of whack to the point where the left tire was noticably sticking farther out than the right tire (more tread showing on the left when looking at them from the rear) wouldn't that account for the negative toe on the left and positive toe on the right? I drew a picture to get an idea of what was going on there and i think it makes sence.

 

and, most of the time i do have to compensate by steering left

 

It shouldn't. The panhard rod should just shift the axle side to side. It wouldn't mess with the thrust angle. Your pull is coming from the front though. Like MR said, the caster should be higher on the front right (by usually half degree) than on the left. Yours is opposite. That plus road crown would definitely cause a pull to the right.

 

I'm going to take it back to the shop and get it aligned to the specs that everybody reccomended and see what the thrust angle is looking like now that i changed the lca's.

 

you are worring too much over the thrust angle. it's not the reason for the pull. just get the caster fixed like we said and the pull will be gone. so long as there isn't a brake, tire or power steering pull. should've left the adjustable ones one. a competent mechanic could adjust the thrust angle with them. or just explain to them how the adjustalbe ones work. you may have to stay there with the car to get it done right.

and another thing, just because the arms were the same length, doesn't make the rear sit straight. too much variance in where they bolt to. that's why you adjust them.

 

Hi i dident read all thease threads, but I jus bebuild my front end an jus had it aliened. I realy trust the shop He said the thrust was fine as well as all my work. eibach an kyb agx all the way around. Why am I so lose? I need any advise thanks

 

the looseness could come from low caster or sloppy power steering box. need to post the final specs so we can figure it out.

 

mrr thanks for your reply, Last nite i drove over one off those bridges with the medal grids for a road, and the hole car jus felt so sloppy. I dont have the finle specs, Maybe i should go back on monday, And i dont think its the stearing box its gotta be something out back, if any one needs more info let me now. Im going to take a closer look on sunday.