Just give me an alignment...

[nuron]

Well I tried to get an alignment to day at Les Schwab Tires and got denied. Before, it was rapid uneven tire wear, now, it's feathering. When they took the car, one of the service guys told me that either my control arms or ball joints are wrong because there's a gap between the balljoints. I mean, the set I bought said specifically that it's for an 87/88-91 Camry! Is it the fact that it doesn't have grease inside of them like the OEM so they're easier to move around and get pushed up like that?




See how the balljoint does not touch the control arm surface.

[fredk]

ok, heres the scoop, camber, or the tire standing nearly straight up is not adjustable, or is most likely not, and caster, or the way the steering knuckle is leaning twards the rear and this returns the wheel back to nearly straight after going around a curve is not adjustable, unless you have bent something you should be ok, all that is adjustable is toe or the way both front wheels point straight ahead or paralell each other. toe out of whack will make a pull, wear the tire on 1 side, make the car nervous or try to pull the tread off the tire if it is way off, I like to run 0 toe or both wheels perfectly straight on my camry, it makes it easy to drive and not so twitchy at highway speeds, if i set it to 1/16 toe in, or the fronts of the tires inwards twards each other 1/16 of an inch it makes it kinda nervous and you have to watch it all the time, I tried 1/16 toe out once, or the rears of the wheels closer together than the fronts and it wanted to follow lines and was nervous going straight, but was killer in the canyon roads, none of these settings wore the tires, do you have an adjustable wrench and a pair of channel locks?

[Doctor J]

The ball joints you got ,are more closely resembling the OEMs than those I put in my car. If the joint is really loose, the whole wheel hub will move in and out,producing noise.The most common reasons for uneven tire wear are:

• The CASTER shims are lost, providing too much toe out on turns ( the idiot, who serviced my car before, tossed them in the trash)
• the CAMBER cams (if equpped) are set to extreme position ( too positive)
• the ball joint set nut must be tightened to 85 lbs-ft, I saw one stud was really loose, due to the careless installation. With front wheels off and car on the stands check for the play at ball joint and at the stud to arm connection.If no play is present, the problem is somewhere else.What was the brand name and price for the parts you used?

[fredk]

very cool doc, where are my caster shims, I would love to take some caster out?

[nuron]

Originally Posted by fredk

do you have an adjustable wrench and a pair of channel locks?

No, but I'm willing to buy them.

Doctor J, here is the link to them:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...m=330098260660

They came to about $100, somewhere around there.


Edit: Is this a channel lock? Then I have both of those.

[toyomoho]

The link below has a pretty good description of tire problems:

http://www.kaltire.com/commercial/me.../tire_wear.php

[Doctor J]

FRED:
The caster shims are flat washers about 1 inch OD, 1/8 inch thick are located on the front sway bar in front of lower control arm big bushing.
Page FA 60 in Gen second manual Front end section.
NURON, my arms are the same but ball joints do not have boss on the top. Check the suspension for play as I suggested.
If there is no play ,make sure that you have shims at specified locations, and set camber cams on center position. If there is no shims, put washers 1/8 in thk (material steel SAE 1040).From this setting the front end could be aligned with ease.

[fredk]

yes it is and set the toe this way, its not the best but will get you close enough to start playing with it, park it running with someone in it to recenter the wheels each time you do something, center the wheel and when it is you can let it go and it will be centered, now look down the outside of the front wheels and see if you can see the very outer edge of the rear ones, if not simply loosten the big nut in the middle of the tierod and take the small clamp off the rubber boot on the rack and turn the rod going into the boot with the channel lock and recenter the wheekl each time you turn it and resite the wheels, do this for each side and then retighten the big nuts, go drive it, i have roughed in hundreds of cars this way and have never had a problem, then after this you can get it set with a ruler

[nuron]

Doctor J, where might I find these camber cams, if my car has them? These wouldn't happen to be peices where the two bolts on the bottom of my struts connect to the brake assembly would it?

[curtisz]

Nuron

This is a bit of a reach, and I am fairly sure that you probably installed your LCA's correctly, but I have to pose this question out of curiosity and because no one else has.

Did you make sure that you put the control arms on the proper sides when you installed them?

I'm not sure that this makes much of a difference, but after I cleaned the ones up that you gave to me, I did notice there were stamps on them indicating left and right side. I'm just wondering if this could possibly explain your gap between the control arm and the ball joint.

[Doctor J]

The upper bolts of strut-to-steering knuckle connection. They are used on 87 to 88.

[nuron]

Originally Posted by curtisz

Nuron

This is a bit of a reach, and I am fairly sure that you probably installed your LCA's correctly, but I have to pose this question out of curiosity and because no one else has.

Did you make sure that you put the control arms on the proper sides when you installed them?

I'm not sure that this makes much of a difference, but after I cleaned the ones up that you gave to me, I did notice there were stamps on them indicating left and right side. I'm just wondering if this could possibly explain your gap between the control arm and the ball joint.

curtisz, here is a picture of the stamping on my new ones:


If I were to be sitting in the drivers seat, it would be on my right. Unless they lable it by the direction of facing the front of the vehicle, that would be a ****.

Here's another picture, I'm gonna try to pull it down.


fredk, here's how I envisioned what you wanted me to do,


Am I turning the vise or the monkey wrench? I remember when I saw my mechanic did it, it looked so easy. The vise grip keeps of slipping if I put force against it. Same goes for the channel lock.

[white90dx]

Originally Posted by nuron

Here's another picture, I'm gonna try to pull it down.

Looking at it again, you might not have that ball joint all the way into the LCA there... Also, the LCA's don't fit the wrong way. They have just enough angle that you wouldn't be able to assemble the suspension the wrong way. It would just be frustrating to get it mostly together before seeing that its wrong - thus the markings.

You have to loosen the nut on the tie-rod end, then you can turn the shaft that goes in and out of the steering rack. It would be better to use specifically sized open-ended wrenches if you can fit them in there, at least to loosen the nut.

-Charlie

[nuron]

Aha I got the tie rod thing fixed. Now there's no more awkwardly-angled steering wheel. Though it does turn to the right though. I remember seeing those caster shims Doctor J was talking about so now it's the camber cams.

Edit: Charlie, I remember that when I got the bushings out of the package, the sleeve was stretched down--enough so that it can cover tha missing gap but hen I pushed it up . I was too frustrated to concentrate on whether it was pulled down or not because the car had been sitting for three days -_-.

[marc780]

Just take it to another shop? I'd be nervous doing a wheel alignment by guess-or-by-God - or at least buy a camber gauge someplace and learn how to use it. There are alot of DIY information on wheel alignment if you google it and many ways to do the toe and camber, but you do need to buy/borrow/rent/fabricate/steal some kind of gauges to measure things or you could be eating front tires like nobodys business.