I did a disc brake swap including trailing arms onto my 97' Civic hatch yesterday and today I went to get an alignment and my toe in the rear was -1/8" with adjustment maxed out. Does anyone know how to correct this problem without having to swap the trailing arm back again? Does anyone make an adjustable piece? Or is is possible to make my own using rod-ends?

 

The trailing arms were from '96+ Civic, right? The arms from the EG (92-95) look similar but aren't the same. Note that the Integra has the same arms as the EG Civic.

 

Everything was from a 98' Teg GSR, trailing arms and all except for i used the civic lower control arm where the shock mounts to it. I had no problem w/ the driver side it is at 0" and the adjustment is dead center, the only problem i'm having is w/ the passenger side.

 

You could slot the chassis where the arm connects.... ...

is that 1/8 toe in?

 

I'm not sure how far it is actually off, the shop has a new setup and the toe is measured in degrees rather than inches, does anyone know what 0deg24'min. converts to in Inches? Slotting the chassis probably isn't going to be enough, I looked under there and there isn't much room left. I also don't like the idea of cutting my chassis for any reason. What needs to be done is shorten the arm that connects at that point, but until I can figure out what 0deg24min. converts to I won't know how much i'll need to adjust it. BTW I called the shop and they have no idea what it converts to, and it is toed out at the moment and needs to be toed back in.


[Modified by B18CJDM, 1:32 PM 2/11/2002]

 

... if I remember... the honda manual gives aligment specs in degrees and minutes... and in inches... check the manual (mines at home)

or you could bust out the calculator...

do you remember geometery...
measure the distance from the turn center or the wheel to the measurement point.

and you know the angle.. you can figure out the toe in or tow out in inches


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Or what you can do.. is set the toe be zero.
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the alignment machine should also give specs in inches too..
The one I use displays both..

or you could buy a longacre toe bar for like $90
this is in inches but not as accurate

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I did check it last night and it appears to be in MM not degrees.

I was actually going to try this out next.

I would love to do this, it was the original reason for posting.

That's what I thought when I was there but the dumb *** couldn't figure out how to change it back to inches, and he wouldn't let me try to help him.

 

This might sound kinda silly, but you might try it. Put the car on jackstands. Put on the ebrake (so the wheel won't turn). Loosen the suspension bolts (all the ones you dealt with in the swap). Then put a jack under the tire and put some load on it (I'd jack it up until it just starts to lift off the jack stand, then back off a bit). Then have someone (preferably big and burly) twist the wheel towards toe-in while you go through and tighten all the bolts to spec.

I'm also inclined to ask, where'd you get the suspension parts? Is it possible something is bent?

-Mike

 

Here's what I got the manual for my CIVIC

Camber 0 degrees +- 1 deg
caster -1 deg +- 1 deg
total toe front : IN 1.0 +- 2.0 (1/16+-1/16)
total toe rear : IN 2.0 +2.0 -1.0 (1/16+-1/16)

So I'm guessing that 2.0 and 1.0 is in degrees...

front wheel turning angle
inboard : 39deg 50 min
outboar 33 deg 10 min (Reference)

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Clifnotes
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since you have about 24 min of toe.. and 1 deg is 1/16 of toe....
I'd say you had almost 1/2 deg of toe (60 minutes=1 degrees).... which is about 1/32" of toe




[Modified by Crazydave, 7:37 PM 2/11/2002]

 

It was on someones car that I know and it could be possible it was bent and he never knew about it, I might just go ahead and swap the suspected bad trailing arm w/ my stock one, luckily I got the alignment done before I gave it away.

 

Yeah, I checked my manual last night and saw that. I'm thinking the 2.0 and 1.0 are MM not degrees cause 1mm=1/16 inch. I actually think it is alot worse than 1/32 because you can actually see how far it is off w/ the naked eye, next time i'm going to hack into their computer and put it back into inches mode so I don't have to do all this math again next time. BTW going the geometry route going by the centerline of wheel ended up being 1/16" toe out which i think is wrong.

 

Remember that degree/mm (or inch) figures in the manual are only going to jive with one-another if the stock diameter wheel/tire package is on the car. The farther out a radius any given deviation in angle is carried, the greater the measured offset. I might be preaching to the choir on this one so the reminder is for anyone who might be reading along...

I have used a trammel bar arrangement to check/set toe on racing/rally cars and it is surprisingly easy and repeatable, though probably not as ultimately accurate as computerized equipment. The REAL advantage (in addition to cost) is that you can do yourself - hey, who do you trust more? You or the part-time guy at the Sears tire center?

Have fun!

Kirk

 

1mm = 1/23"
2mm = 1/13"
3mm = 2/17"
2.54mm = 1"