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RandyCSVT
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Joined: August 11, 2014
Posts: 18
Location: United States
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 Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 8:15 pm Post subject: what is causing my uneven alignment and how do i correct it. |
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I recently got my 1972 standard beetle roadworthy and most suspension bits were changed. I took it in for an alignment and the shop was unable to get the alignment even.
I have done the following to the front of the car:
- removed worn beam inner micarta bushing and outer needle bearing and replaced with poly sleeves, the long ones. All four have been installed
- replaced worn lower ball joints, inspected uppers and they were fine.
- installed drop spindle empi disc brake kit with all new wheel bearings.
- new kyb gr2 shocks
- new steering damper
- new inner and outer tie rods
- upgraded sway bar
- extra camber adjusters
I have done the following to the rear:
- new inner and outer poly bushings for the spring plate/ torsion bar
- rear empi disc brake kit with ebrake and heavy duty bracket
- new cv boots and cleaned out joints
- new wheel bearings
- upgraded rear sway bar
- lowered 1 inner spline
- new kyb gr2 shocks
new stock size tires installed on all four corners. I had the fenders rolled and pulled at all four corners to give me more clearance and prevent tire rubbing.
After I got the alignment. Notice that the camber doesnt match left to right either front or rear. I don't care that it is very negative, but I was worried about each side not matching the other. Could something be bent or broken causing this?
Here is the before if it helps.
also, the only rear adjustment i saw was toe. Can i adjust rear camber? |
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air-h2o-air
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Joined: January 25, 2015
Posts: 579
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| Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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frt camber is adjustable...did they even try to adjust? (upper ball joint eccentric)
rear camber is usually a result of someone lowering rear via the torsions, or sagging torsions.
of course something frt and or rear can be bent/tweaked to cause mis-alignment |
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Multi69s
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Joined: January 24, 2006
Posts: 5363
Location: Lefty, CA
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TheAmazingDave
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Joined: April 11, 2013
Posts: 788
Location: San Jose, CA
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| Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 11:01 pm Post subject: |
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Man... I might try another shop. I don't know how they could have messed up the toe so badly, especially since it looked okay before adjustment.
I mean, it's literally adjusting the tie rods until the wheels are at the right angle. It's as if they just threw their hands up in the air and said F it after failing to set the camber, and just left the toe where it was. IDK, I'm not an alignment tech, but that just seems odd to me.
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RandyCSVT
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Joined: August 11, 2014
Posts: 18
Location: United States
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 4:03 am Post subject: |
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| air-h2o-air wrote: |
frt camber is adjustable...did they even try to adjust? (upper ball joint eccentric)
rear camber is usually a result of someone lowering rear via the torsions, or sagging torsions.
of course something frt and or rear can be bent/tweaked to cause mis-alignment |
I was actaully in the shop for the alignment. The tech spun the passenger side eccentric camber adjuster all the way around and the most camber it would give is what is showing on the sheet, while doing the same to the drivers side got mich more negative camber. That is what has me thinking something is bent. I wanted both sides to match around -1.5 degrees camber in the front.
I lowered the rear torsions 1 inner spline. Could my torsions be bad if the rear left and right camber is not matching? |
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RandyCSVT
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Joined: August 11, 2014
Posts: 18
Location: United States
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 4:04 am Post subject: |
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| xBigDx408x wrote: |
Man... I might try another shop. I don't know how they could have messed up the toe so badly, especially since it looked okay before adjustment.
I mean, it's literally adjusting the tie rods until the wheels are at the right angle. It's as if they just threw their hands up in the air and said F it after failing to set the camber, and just left the toe where it was. IDK, I'm not an alignment tech, but that just seems odd to me. |
They got the toe right. The top picture is after and the bottom is before alignment. |
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RandyCSVT
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Joined: August 11, 2014
Posts: 18
Location: United States
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 4:07 am Post subject: |
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| Multi69s wrote: |
| The rear camber in many cases is due to bent trailing arms. 40 years of metal fatigue and pot holes has claimed more then one set. |
Is the trailing arm the long arm that is at a 45 or so degree angle from the spring plate? The one that goes from where the stub axle sits to the inside of the car at an angle. Are there bushings in there that wear, because I didn't change anything on those. |
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67jason
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Joined: August 28, 2005
Posts: 4741
Location: behind my back feet - Pittsburg CA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 4:31 am Post subject: |
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| RandyCSVT wrote: |
| Multi69s wrote: |
| The rear camber in many cases is due to bent trailing arms. 40 years of metal fatigue and pot holes has claimed more then one set. |
Is the trailing arm the long arm that is at a 45 or so degree angle from the spring plate? The one that goes from where the stub axle sits to the inside of the car at an angle. Are there bushings in there that wear, because I didn't change anything on those. |
yes there are rubber bushings in there, inner and outer for a total of 4, 2 per side. and yes they wear out, you should have replaced them when you reindexed the rear. torsion bars in the rear can also go bad, but not common.
the torsion arms up front can get bent too, or worn due to bad needle bearings in the front beam.
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DeathTrap
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Joined: February 26, 2004
Posts: 1757
Location: Sacramento/Vermont
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 6:20 am Post subject: |
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[quote="RandyCSVT"]
| xBigDx408x wrote: |
They got the toe right. The top picture is after and the bottom is before alignment. |
That's what an alignment shop does.
Set the toe and let it go.
Nowadays to enact much more than that requires some hardware replacements and $$$hours$$$ of labor.
As for particulars I can't add much.
My last super I had it in the shop on a body rack getting it made square to begin with.
They show pics of a super with struts.
Things get bent. Many times so that the adjustments aren't available to make it straight.
Perhaps a good shop can bend things back into shape.
You could also have things like bent spindles. If strut, bent struts. Control arms, trailing arms, body or frame It goes on .
I had struts and the eccentrics never came close to making up the camber.
What did I do? Set the toe and let it go. |
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lobsterlike
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Joined: September 12, 2014
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Location: S. Oregon
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 7:23 am Post subject: |
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| Did the shop load the car with weight in the drivers seat while doing the alignment? From my experience, adding weight can have a dramatic effect on wheel alignment. The specs that you posted seem to suggest that the torsion bars are weaker on one side, which is common for many cars. Also don't overlook the simple stuff like tire pressures, bent wheels, uneven weight distribution. Many Things can cause weird readings, including how the alignment rack is set up. Was the Rack level side to side, did the tech remember to pull the pins out of the wheel slip plates, did he bounce the car up and down and let the suspension settle out after adjusting? Should also add that very few cars will have matching readings side to side, I usually shoot for 0.5 to 0.75 degree difference (Cross-Camber). Your Caster looks good, but more importantly the thrust angle and toe is good. Maybe Just drive it for awhile to let things settle down and have it re-checked? |
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TheAmazingDave
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Joined: April 11, 2013
Posts: 788
Location: San Jose, CA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 8:23 am Post subject: |
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| RandyCSVT wrote: |
They got the toe right. The top picture is after and the bottom is before alignment. |
Oh, that went right over my head... Oops.
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DeathTrap
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Joined: February 26, 2004
Posts: 1757
Location: Sacramento/Vermont
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 8:37 am Post subject: |
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| stock wheels can come in all sorts of offset. But if lowered and at fender's edge it would be apparent. |
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RandyCSVT
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Joined: August 11, 2014
Posts: 18
Location: United States
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 9:12 am Post subject: |
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| lobsterlike wrote: |
| Did the shop load the car with weight in the drivers seat while doing the alignment? From my experience, adding weight can have a dramatic effect on wheel alignment. |
No weight loaded on the car. He drove the car on the alignment rack and aligned it empty.
| lobsterlike wrote: |
| The specs that you posted seem to suggest that the torsion bars are weaker on one side, which is common for many cars. Also don't overlook the simple stuff like tire pressures, bent wheels, uneven weight distribution. |
tire pressure was set to 20psi front and 30psi rear. I don't think the wheels are bent since they balanced fine when I put new tires on them last week.
| lobsterlike wrote: |
| Many Things can cause weird readings, including how the alignment rack is set up. Was the Rack level side to side, did the tech remember to pull the pins out of the wheel slip plates, did he bounce the car up and down and let the suspension settle out after adjusting? Should also add that very few cars will have matching readings side to side, I usually shoot for 0.5 to 0.75 degree difference (Cross-Camber). Your Caster looks good, but more importantly the thrust angle and toe is good. Maybe Just drive it for awhile to let things settle down and have it re-checked? |
He did all of that. The car drives fine. I was just worried that the camber was about a degree off from each side. I will have a shop that specializes in aircooled beetles double check it to make sure I am not missing something and just drive it for a bit and see what happens. |
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Multi69s
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Joined: January 24, 2006
Posts: 5363
Location: Lefty, CA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| RandyCSVT wrote: |
| Multi69s wrote: |
| The rear camber in many cases is due to bent trailing arms. 40 years of metal fatigue and pot holes has claimed more then one set. |
Is the trailing arm the long arm that is at a 45 or so degree angle from the spring plate? The one that goes from where the stub axle sits to the inside of the car at an angle. Are there bushings in there that wear, because I didn't change anything on those. |
Correct, your wheels are attached to the trailing arms. However, if the torsion bar bushings are bad, It can lead to some camber issues. However, if you can physically see that the camber is off in the rear, that is usually a sign that the trailing arms are bent. I've had to replace mine on both my 69 road bug and my 73 Squareback. On my Baja, I have strengthened them so they wont bend.
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kamesama980
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Joined: June 22, 2014
Posts: 323
Location: Columbus, IN
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 10:09 am Post subject: |
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Deathtrap: you need to find a new shop. The only time I ever did a toe-and-go was on some crappy eclipse lowered about 4" with most of the bushings seized to the bolts and overall hacked to heck and back. in hindsight I shouldn't have let them talk me into it no matter how much they protested. Yes some newer cars only include toe adjustment but the majority do include at least camber without parts. Caster not often and rear adjustment is hit-and-miss. Either way, that's the manufacturers fault not the shop.
Why it could be out of the range of adjustment/cross-camber:
-bent parts (it IS 40+ years old) including but not limited to: beam, chassis, control arm, spindle, hub
-manufacturing issue with the drop-spindles (EMPI is known for their outstanding quality, right )
-wrong ball joint eccentric cams (IE 1deg adjuster on one side, 1.5deg on the other side) could be a part shipping problem (sent the wrong one) or manufacturing problem (made wrong)
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