Caster Problems
OK, this is long... sorry, but i thought that it might help someone, oneday...
I've got a '91 rex, lowered (22.5 inches from fender to ground in front... i'm not sure how much lower that is than stock)...
Naturally my camber was way out of wack, (at this point i had some no-name, short stiff aftermarket springs all the way around) so i ordered an ingall's camber kit...
I took it to a local shop to get it aligned and they said that it was too low to be aligned correctly, and that my best bet would be to put the stock springs back on... the old man at the counter (i think that he owns the place) said that there was no way that the car "would ever align correctly" because it is lowered...
So, i went home and ordered a Ground Control coilover kit... (which the car should have had in the first place) I installed it and raised the car back to about where i thought it would have come stock (this was one of the hardest things i have done in my entire life (not mechanically)... the car looked retarded, i wanted to kick myself in the nuts)...
Well, on a hunch i decided to try and eyeball the camber myself before i went through the trouble of setting and making an appointment with the same shop again... guess what? the car was still too "low" (there wasn't enough clearance inside the fender wells for the upper a-arm to clear when the wheel was back on the ground)
So i got on a forum and asked you wonderful people to help me... you guys advised me to cut the inside of the fender wells to make clearance... so out i went with an air grinder and cutting tool... i made room...
Two days later, (the day before i was scheduled to have the alignment redone) i blew an axle... so the shop got to put in a new axle for me and do my alignment...
Old man comes out of the shop and tells me "caster is way out," taken aback i asked him "caster? not camber" (by the way, the car would make a right turn with out touching the steering wheel after i took it to them)
to make a long story short, they told me that i must have bent or broken something, a tie rod or whatever, when the axle blew...
And the old man went on again to say, "you will never be able to align the car anyway, like i said before, it's lowered, it'll never be right "
So, frustrated, i took the car to a front end "specialist" who couldn't fit his little alignment jig thing on my wheel...
on the way home i stopped by a place that handles custom wheels and special order tires... they've got this 4 wheel 3d computer alignment deal that is only like five dollars more than the front end alignment that the other shop couldn't ever do...
so i bit... i let them try it... guess what? absolutely no problems doing the aligment... car drives straight... not only is camber in spec, the guy got it to +.02 on both sides...(that's from -3.5 on one side and -4.1 on the other)
it turns out that with the ingalls kit you can adjust caster and camber... and the other shop could never figure that out...
so, the moral of the story? i dunno, but if this ever sounds familiar to you, i would recommend getting a second or even third opinion... don't accept BS answers like
"it'll never be right, it's lowered..." go to someone who knows what they are doing, and preferrably someone who handles some "special" vehicles like yours and mine...
Either way, the situation forced me to go ahead and fork out for the GC coilovers... which is never a bad deal...
I've got a '91 rex, lowered (22.5 inches from fender to ground in front... i'm not sure how much lower that is than stock)...
Naturally my camber was way out of wack, (at this point i had some no-name, short stiff aftermarket springs all the way around) so i ordered an ingall's camber kit...
I took it to a local shop to get it aligned and they said that it was too low to be aligned correctly, and that my best bet would be to put the stock springs back on... the old man at the counter (i think that he owns the place) said that there was no way that the car "would ever align correctly" because it is lowered...
So, i went home and ordered a Ground Control coilover kit... (which the car should have had in the first place) I installed it and raised the car back to about where i thought it would have come stock (this was one of the hardest things i have done in my entire life (not mechanically)... the car looked retarded, i wanted to kick myself in the nuts)...
Well, on a hunch i decided to try and eyeball the camber myself before i went through the trouble of setting and making an appointment with the same shop again... guess what? the car was still too "low" (there wasn't enough clearance inside the fender wells for the upper a-arm to clear when the wheel was back on the ground)
So i got on a forum and asked you wonderful people to help me... you guys advised me to cut the inside of the fender wells to make clearance... so out i went with an air grinder and cutting tool... i made room...
Two days later, (the day before i was scheduled to have the alignment redone) i blew an axle... so the shop got to put in a new axle for me and do my alignment...
Old man comes out of the shop and tells me "caster is way out," taken aback i asked him "caster? not camber" (by the way, the car would make a right turn with out touching the steering wheel after i took it to them)
to make a long story short, they told me that i must have bent or broken something, a tie rod or whatever, when the axle blew...
And the old man went on again to say, "you will never be able to align the car anyway, like i said before, it's lowered, it'll never be right "
So, frustrated, i took the car to a front end "specialist" who couldn't fit his little alignment jig thing on my wheel...
on the way home i stopped by a place that handles custom wheels and special order tires... they've got this 4 wheel 3d computer alignment deal that is only like five dollars more than the front end alignment that the other shop couldn't ever do...
so i bit... i let them try it... guess what? absolutely no problems doing the aligment... car drives straight... not only is camber in spec, the guy got it to +.02 on both sides...(that's from -3.5 on one side and -4.1 on the other)
it turns out that with the ingalls kit you can adjust caster and camber... and the other shop could never figure that out...
so, the moral of the story? i dunno, but if this ever sounds familiar to you, i would recommend getting a second or even third opinion... don't accept BS answers like
"it'll never be right, it's lowered..." go to someone who knows what they are doing, and preferrably someone who handles some "special" vehicles like yours and mine...
Either way, the situation forced me to go ahead and fork out for the GC coilovers... which is never a bad deal...
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loki2323
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Apr 9, 2003 12:34 PM



