HELP! Rear trailing arm camber look...
 

What is the frequency of a trailing arm being badly bent?

Here's the story. After bolting all tires on near the end of my resto, my father in law says, "Hey, that tire looks cocked." After assesing the situation, the left rear tire was indeed leaning in at the top very pronounced. After I got the car up on jackstands evenly, using a magnetic level, I measured the camber off of the brake rotor. After compressing the spring with a jack to simulate the car being on the ground, I calculated that the camber is about -5.3 degrees! Indeed this is about 4 times the legal limit. I already have (2) 2mm shims installed and nothing looks out of the ordinary where the arm bolts to the car or to the bracket. Doing some quickie trig says I need another 13mm of shims! WHOA! I have a car show in 3 days and I dont want to drive it like this. PLS see pic for a visual aid. Also, anybody have a good "rule of thumb" method of roughly setting caster and camber for the rear in lieu of going to an alignment shop "rimmediately after the trailing arms are reinstalled" like Haynes warns?

Thanks,

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1094624006.jpg

You may want to wait for the higher minds on the board to weigh in but I'm guessing either a twisted control arm or failing inside mounting ear.

dr

Set the ride height all the way around first. Check the rear camber after the car is on the ground and you bounce the car a bunch to reset the springs into the perchs.
Then check the camber.
Check for bent/rusted suspension console or trailing arm if the camber is waay out.

Geoff