I wonder if this is why the front end of my car won't align straight???

[jluetjen]

The previous owner of my car parked it up against a guard rail at Watkins Glen at some point in it's history. Since then I've been driving it with the car aligned to get the tires pointed in the same direction, even though it's crabbing by a degree or two.

The best that I've ever been able to get the camber on the car looks like this on the front:

/-----|

Meanwhile, the best that I could do with the toe ended up looking like this:

/----/
/----/

Basically the rear wheels were tracking about 1 inch to the right of right of the front wheels.

My hope has been that the problem is localized to the RF strut being bent, so I figured that I'd replace the struts and then check the alignment. Here's what I found when I took the old struts off:



In the picture, the right-front strut is on the left. Along with the fact that one of the struts is held to the ball-joint by the a wedge-pin and the other by a bolt, it looks like at least the steering arms are not the same. Note that flanges where the brake calipers mount, the LF strut's flanges (on the right in the picture) are at least a quarter of an inch above the RF strut's flanges. Without a fixture it seems to be pretty hard to check the alignment of the rest of the assembly, but it looks like I might be going down the right path. As soon as I get the wedge pins figured out, I'm hoping that the car will align up straighter then it has in the past.

[BlueSideUp]

So one side is using the wedge pin style from the '72 and up 911. The other side is using the '69-'71 pinch bolt style?

Did they change the ball joints to match too?

[jluetjen]

I doubt it. Both ball joints are pretty old, so I'm going to replace them both with >'72's.

[RWebb]

Good idea.

Someday, somebody will buy a 911 with no POitis...

[TimT]

John,

I have some struts sitting under my dust collection experiment you could have.... although they are M caliper spacing...

[Wayne 962]

I would just buy new struts if you think they might have been damaged...

-Wayne

[TimT]

I would just buy new struts if you think they might have been damaged...

Of course you would.... as opposed to getting a set of struts for free.....

I have a few sets that John could have

[avi8torny]

Your spindle is bent, this will give you fits on the alignment rack. Wayne's got the right idea. Sometimes you can bend them to get the camber back in spec (when installed in the car). The caster is a different animal. Years ago a truck backed into my right front fender, I thought he just bent some sheet metal. Pulled it away from the tire and drove home. Months later after I got the car repaired, then had the car aligned. Ran into the same problem you are having.

[BlueSideUp]

I think Wayne was referring to the inserts themselves not saying that he should buy all new housings. I hardly think Wayne is trying to push us all into buying new parts all the time. Find some used housings (like the ones graciously offered by Tim) and throw some new inserts in, you'll be good to go.

It sounds like someone replaced one of the strut assemblies with a junkyard unit after a landscaping excursion.

[jluetjen]

I've already got some new Fox struts hanging in place. But alas, I ran into wedge-pin hell since the ball joints on my MY '69 car don't work with the >'72 wedge pins which are available. Since at least one of the ball joint boots is torn and leaking, I figure that I'll just replace the ball joints too.

It reminds me of a line from Buckaroo Banzai: (Buckaroo to his side-kick while Banzai is performing brain surgery...) "No-No-No. Don't tug on that, you never know what might be attached to"

See 5:30


Thanks for the offer TimT!

[jluetjen]

Just a quick follow-up -- it looks like the chassis may be well and truly warped.

I've put the whole thing back together and the cambers and corner-weights still suggest a bent chassis. The situation has been improved since I've noticed that the steering wheel is slightly turned now compared to prior to the strut replacement. I'll square up the toe and do a careful alignment and corner weight check this weekend.

Anyhow, after doing a quick camber and cornerweight adjustment (using only the front adjusters) after resetting the front ride height back to roughly where it was prior to the swap, I'm left with the following situation while carrying about #200 of ballast in the driver's seat:

LF----RF
LR----RR

Front Camber:
-2 ---- -1.5 with the top of the left strut full out and the top of the right strut full-in. (Note that I've got Elephant Racing offset ball joints installed in anticipation of the car's future career as a race car.)

Ride height (quick and dirty measurement at the fender lips):
24"----24 3/8"
24 7/8" ----24 5/8"

Corner weights (using a jack-style corner weight checker)
#520 ---- #420
#640 ---- #650

RF+LR: #1060 (47.5%)
LF+RR: #1170 (52.5%)
weight: #2230 -- Which is pretty close to my previous measurement a couple of years ago.

Note that the diagonal which is the lightest (RF and LR) are also the highest. In order to add weight to that diagonal I should raise the ride height of those corners while lowering the other corners. The end result, it looks like the car's chassis has got a counter-clockwise twist to the front when looking back from the front. This is what I would expect if the RF corner hit a guardrail laterally.

I won't know more until I set-up the strings and check the toe and tracking this weekend.

Anyhow, lunch is over. Back to the day job!