pulling right question

[ramonesfreak]

Last summer I had the entire suspension refreshed. Alignment was done.

Upon getting car back I notice two obvious issues

1) the car pulls right, regardless of which side of the road I am on

2) it seems like it takes more effort to turn the steering wheel to the left....most noticeable on long sweeping turns but even going straight, its obvious. Steering wheel wants to turn right without much resistance as compared to turning it left

I have an appointment in August to have them go over everything again.

The only obvious thing I see is that the rear left corner (driver side) sits lower (about an inch) than the rear right corner - and- the left front corner sits higher (about an inch) than the right front corner

I can see the car sitting uneven as it sits in my garage. I measured using a stick from the ground up to the fender lip, straight up the middle of the center of the wheel.... and marked where the fender lip was on the stick and repeated all corners.

I have been taking this stick on drives and checking whenever I park to confirm the issue isnt my garage floor. I see same above results wherever I park.

Is this is a red herring or could this be the culprit?

--sticking break caliper was ruled out.
--my mechanic says all the alignment measurements are right ( I dont have the #s)
--Tires are always set to 29F/34R but I have played around with this without any improvement
-- At time of refresh, tires had about 1,800 miles on them so,,,,basically new. I have since put about 700 miles on them since the refresh to try to rule out the tire wear pattern from the prior suspension set up as being the issue....not seeing any improvement yet

[brianlay]

These cars are sensitive to corner balance and from your measurements sounds like yours may be off.
I would take it to a shop that can measure and properly adjust the weight on each wheel.
Some shops will try to even out the weights by just adjusting the front torsion bars because they won’t take the time to do it right.
As far as alignment goes, it shouldn’t be a secret. You provide target specs and they tell you how close they were able to get.

[brighton911]

I had the same problem and as brianlay stated, it was the corner balance being off. Once corrected, it is straight down the road with no inputs needed on the wheel.

[Nditiz1]

Get you some race scales and fix it yourself OR pay a competent shop OR try to get lucky and adjust the driver front ride height loosening the torsion adjuster which should lessen the weight on that side causing the car to no longer be forced to the right. You can do it as a quick test and count the amount of rotations to see if the pulling improves.

[smadsen]

The ride height should be nominally the same, side to side, before, during & after dorking around with the corner balance.

Sounds like something was installed upside down and /or backwards during the suspension work. It should have been caught in the alignment process.

[PeteKz]

I had to think about your description of how it sits. Are you sure you got the description right? From what you said, it sounds to me like the body is significantly twisted. Please post your measurements for each fender height.

[BSNMOE]

Jack up front by the center of the crossmember (hockey puck or similar wood). As you jack slowly watch as wheels leave ground. Is one wheel higher or lower. Do same in rear center of engine. Not as good as scales but you'll get an indication.
Maybe the rear height adj bolt was not tight enough.
Also after height adj you should drive around for at least 50 miles so bushings are set. You'll find the car will drop 1/4 in sometimes after driving.

[ramonesfreak]

Originally Posted by PeteKz

I had to think about your description of how it sits. Are you sure you got the description right? From what you said, it sounds to me like the body is significantly twisted. Please post your measurements for each fender height.

I thought same. Can’t be twisted though as I have had the car almost 20 years and never noticed this and nothing has happened except the refresh…but yea, seems odd it could be sitting like this

[Nditiz1]

Originally Posted by smadsen

The ride height should be nominally the same, side to side, before, during & after dorking around with the corner balance.

I wouldn't say this unless your are 200% that the car has never been in any type of accident, all bushings are new or worn exactly the same, torsion bars are new or worn exactly the same. Even then, was hans hung over before the start of his shift that day?

I would say get your ride heights even as a starting point and then adjust accordingly for corner balance.

[ramonesfreak]

My shop was finally able to check the corner balance. The right front and left rear corners were way off…over 100lbs too light in each corner. I only had a chance to test drive a short distance but it seems perfect now. Corner balance was the issue.

Here are some #s

[Ian Comerford]

I must admit I would have thought they should have done this when setting your car up initially……

[ramonesfreak]

You are correct. Unfortunately they did not. The alignment looked fine to them but they did not corner balance after doing suspension replacement project. And test drive was not thorough enough, or didn’t happen at all. Rear torsion bar was not set right. I could see the stance was off just looking at car in my garage. Upon driving yesterday, the steering wheel felt balanced. The car now feels balanced. And looks even. Unfortunately I lost 2 full seasons of driving car and tons of stress having car sitting and being shuffled around their shop for months while they waited for free time to fix this. They acknowledged this should not have happened, especially considering how good this shop is and of course did not charge me for the corner balance. My beef with this shop is it seems that race cars are given priority. It’s all good now. I’m happy it’s fixed…and most likely I will never have to deal with this ever again.

[ramonesfreak]

One good thing that came of it is, now that they have test driven my car, they advised that of all the older 911s they work on, mine is one of the best driving cars they have driven….good to know since I have never driven another air cooled 911.