5 replies to this topic

[dklawson]

This is not about my car but one a friend recently purchased.

My friend dropped his subframe and rebuilt it a long with the radius arms. He didn't notice anything wrong when he took everything apart but NOW that it's all back together and sitting on its wheel my friend thinks it looks like the right, rear wheel is toed in.

The subframe was not altered or damaged during the rebuild and he's put the stock radius arm brackets back on. The arms were rebuilt and reamed to size with no apparent slop or off-center boring of the bushing. The other (left) side does not appear to show the problem (toe in OR toe out).

Do you guys have any suggestions on what he should check? Should he simple plan on modifying the right side outer bracket so he can shim its position to correct the toe?

All suggestions are welcome.

[T.Harper]

Doug I believe it is quite easy to bend radius arms without realising! I have a ridiculous amount of positive camber on my rear driver's wheel after doing a handbrake turn with 2 friends in the back - but I'm not sure what could cause toe in, maybe the same type of force the other way? Did he notice anything before? - i guess you probably wouldn't check if you were going to rebuild it

[Ethel]

Agreed, radius arms do bend. Looking at the bottom of the damper in relation to the subframe would give an indication.

[dklawson]

I suggested the bent arm to my friend when we spoke about this on the phone last night. He said that he had not noticed any toe in prior to rebuilding the rear end. However, he also said that he took the arms to a machinist to have the bushings reamed. I guess there's always the possibility that the machinist dropped the arm and damaged it.

Frankly, I couldn't think of any assembly errors that would cause the problem.

[Purple Tom]

Has the toe setting actually been measured? From experience I know that looking at a wheel from above or down the length of the car doesn't really give you much of an idea of the geometry, and this can be made worse by the fitting of aftermarket wheel arches etc...

[1340 gt]

i have similar problems, both my wheels have slight positive camber and appear to toe in slightly, i guess camber and castor brackets are the easiest and best solution,

i have much bigger problems at the moment tho!