[Walt Fricke]

I agree that it is unlikely that a "backward" CV (locked) would get installed, though it would be possible to do it. Might line up well enough on the wheel side flange, which is attached first? If, in its locked state, you could not maneuver it over the transmission side flange, you could loosen the 8mm bolts on the transmission mount and shove the transmission over enough to get the clearance needed. I have done that on a SWB car adapted to LWB along with camber boxes. Rear tires align, but track (at the flanges) is just a hair narrow, and the end of the axle bumps into the tranny flange without this kind of fiddling.

Indeed, the first time a guy assembles a CV backward, after the panic of how to get it back apart subsides, all goes well enough - I can't imagine anyone so lacking in a feel for what should happen would just install it. You don't need to know just how a CV works (I continue to marvel at the human ingenuity which allowed Sr. Rezeppa to conceive this device)in order to realize things have to move, especially if you were the one who took the axle off in the first place, or pulled the old CV apart.

Measurement would seem to be the key to pinpointing the culprit here. Is the transmission centered laterally on the chassis? Are the two chassis attachment points - the inner banana arm attachments on the torsion tube, and the outer where the torsion bars connect to the trailing arm, where they should be, or at least symmetrical. If so then it is hard not to conclude that there is a bent trailing arm.

If, despite a bent trailing arm, the rear tires are both parallel(that is, have a slight toe in within the alignment specifications), then it should be possible to observe that the toe adjusters are set or clocked rather differently from one side to the other to compensate.