I keep looking at your pic's from the front. So you got the "Tuck and Poke" going on at the same time. Isn't that the NASCAR setup? Seriously..... it's like your whole front end assembly has shifted to the drivers side. Kind of like a parallelogram.
Looking at the last two pic's of the front end. The tops of the strut towers. Do I see a large amount of "Mushrooming" going on? It's kind of hard to tell, but they seem "Domed".
Just the passenger side. It wasn't too bad either. We did manage to smooth it out, and I'm going to get strut tower bar to help keep it from coming back. That's part of the reason why I want to keep the fixed plates in there. They are beefy and won't bend. The drivers side is fine though. No noticeable mushrooming on that side, at least from what we could tell. I'll take another look at it though when I get a chance. I don't believe this to be the problem though. There's just so many variables to guess at. I'm just going to end up doing it the old fashioned way and swap out 1 part at a time.......
Sometimes the tried and true ways are the tried and true ways for a reason. good luck hunting it down. We're all curious as to what it is. Matt
If I wasn't going to Lime Rock this weekend, I'd shoot up there and help ya out. It's really coming down to a misaligned hub on the carrier, or a bent carrier.
I checked the hub out already, and it seems fine. I was really hoping it wasn't the wheel carrier itself, but it seems like that's really the issue here. Guess I'll just have to drill out the broken bolt......
I'm a bit skeptical on that one... really, it's a big effin hunk of iron. To get camber differences, you'd have to change the angle of the bore for the strut to the face of the mating surface for the wheel carrier. As far as camber goes, it only has three points of interest: Where the lower ball joint attaches, the bore the stut goes into, and the face that the wheel carrier mates to. The mount for the tie rod can only affect toe, not camber. I don't know the exact force required, but I'm guessing that isn't a small number! I just can't imaging how that sucker would bend. don't take this as ragging, but just blow off the posts, take 1/2 hour to an hour a night, and swap parts out. You'll be done before you know it. And when you find the problem, then you can allow yourself back on the boards to let us all know what it was. Matt
Yeah I don't know how it would bend either! I'm definitely going to save that for last. First thing tonight I'm going to try putting the old ball joints in and see what happens. Then I'm trying the old wheel hub, and then the old LCA, and then I'll try the old carrier. Hopefully it doesn't make it that far.......
I found the problem! So first thing I did was jack the front end up. I took a look at the spacing between the bottom of the struts and the CV axle. I took a look at the passenger side since this side is fine. I kinda used it as a control side to compare to the drivers side which was having issues. Here's what the passenger side looked like: Here's what the drivers side looked like: Notice a difference in the space? I used my fingers as a reference. There was a HUGE difference. So I took the wheel carrier off and compared it the the original one on the car. Here's what that looked like: Look at the differences between the blue one and the old one. Notice mainly the difference between both of them where the struts mount on the carrier. The blue one was the newer one I bought. It was a used one, but it was in good condition (or so I thought......) I don't know how it happened, but it was somehow bent, and bent very badly. It might be the only one EVER to be bent! So with that being found, I cleaned up the old one, drilled out the broken bolt, and put a through bolt in. Mounted everything back up and put the car on the ground. Success! Both sides are sitting good now. Both have some negative camber, not too much either. I just need to put the rear set on now. And get an alignment done. My car is a little pigeon toed, lol. I ended up having a late start today, and I cleaned up the old carrier and painted it to match. Couldn't have it looking all plain and not matching the rest of the car lol. So tomorrow morning, I'll be swapping in the rear set, then going to get an alignment done this week! Wish me luck!
Lesson learned is... Lesson learned is... Compare new parts with old before installing. Don't feel bad it is a lesson most folks who work on cars learn. Congrats on finding the issue.
Yeah I don't feel bad about not checking it. Funny thing is that I checked everything else BUT the wheel carriers! I'm gonna have to give a call to Way and see what he'll do for me. I bought the used wheel carriers from him, and I know he's a stand up guy so I'm sure we can work something out here. I put the rear set on yesterday before work. Managed to get it all together except one of the rear control arms. I was having issues unbolting it from the trailing arm. I was running low on time and wouldn't have had any time to get a through bolt for it if it broke, so I left it on. Sprayed the hell out of it with PB Blaster and I'm hoping that'll loosen the bolt up for me to change it out. Won't get the chance to work on it until Friday though, so that'll give the suspension time to settle, and then I'll change that out and get the alignment done. I can't wait!!! Thanks for all the help though guys! I really appreciated all the information you all provided me with every problem I ran in to with this!
I'm sure Way will have you ship them back & provide you with a full refund. No way he'd do any less for a good customer. Heck these things happen.
Crashton, I don't doubt it for a second. Way is a stand up guy and I know we'll be able to work out something. I just called him and talked to him. He had me send him an email with the picture of it, so he said he'll look at it and call me back after that. So I'm just waiting for the call back from him on it. Maybe I'll have him just give me a store credit or something, maybe I'll pick up the M7 shift knob or the Helix short throw shifter or the M12 stud conversion or something else I could use :arf:
Buy the way, see what I have circled in red. Importaint not to have paint here as this is where the brakes go, and paint goes away leaving 'space', as little as it may be. But enough that the bolts could come loose. Maybe a low chance, but just something you should tend to anyway.
Yeah, after I saw the paint peeling from where everything was bolting to it, I cleaned off the areas with a little paint thinner. I was thinking that EXACTLY! I just don't want any more issues to arise with the front end. I'm tired of jacking the front end up!!! Yeah tell me about it! :lol:
In general when you paint something, look at the mating surfaces and mask them with some blue tape. It's more of a pain, but it's a good idea..... Matt