Rear Wheel Alignment

[suburpy]

I have just been in to take the old girl to get a heap of suspension work done before a 1600km trip to the outback. I have over the years replaced all the front bushes, inner and outer tie-rod ends, balljoints, shockers, etc, etc. It drives sweet.... except it has a constant off centre wheel.

 

My toe and camber on the front are well within specs, but when they put it onto the wheel alignment machine the rear drivers side has a toe out of + 10.5mm, the car feels like I am driving a crab. I understand this is non adjustable but what would cause such a massive issue (the passenger side is + 1.6mm). Surely a worn bush wouldnt cause this much difference, do I need to replace a control arm, it doesnt look bent but its hard to tell by eye.

 

The rear is in pretty good nick generally new shocks, rear discs, new bearings about 20,000km ago. I did get bogged recently amnd heard a big bang under the car and came otu the other side and I had gone over a pretty big log, thinking I damaged the arm then? any thoughts on repair appreciated.

[NorthWet]

Vehicle model and year would be helpful.. :-\

[suburpy]

Of course 1983 ea81 4wd wagon you guys call it a GL model, here its a touring wagon. The ones with the high roof at the back.

[T'subaru]

Toe and camber is adjustable on the ea82 rears, but i have no experience with ea81's.

[Leeroy]

Just to make sure, your issue is with the steering wheel being on a slight angle when you are driving straight ahead?

 

If yes the fix is to turn the inner tie rods (those attached to the steering rack) in the same direction for the same amount of turns. According to my workshop manual a 1/4 turn of both inner tie rods will change the steering wheel position by 10 mm.

 

Having stated that I have never corrected any of mine, I just put up with it! In my experience neither suspension nor tyre shops seem to know how to do this.

[NorthWet]

It has been a while since I have dealt with the EA81's torsion-bar rear suspension (mostly deal with the later coil-over stuff), but I would suggest 2 possibilities.

 

The first is bad wheel bearings. It sounds like you would have already checked for something like this, but thought that it was worth mentioning.

 

The second is a bent outer plate of the control arm, the part that spans between the torsion bar and the main control arm/bearing housing. This would seem to be the only part of the control arm that could conceivably get tweaked.

 

Other than those, something severely wrong with the control arm's inner pivot/bushing is my only other thought.

[Gloyale]

Toe and camber is adjustable on the ea82 rears' date=' but i have no experience with ea81's.[/quote']

 

It's the same as the EA82s

 

Like this

 

[T'subaru]

So the ea81's run the same ( or similar ) inner arms?

[hastifc]

It's the same as the EA82s

 

Like this

 

 

do you by chance have more info on rear alignment values and process for an 85 wagon 4x4?

[Gloyale]

do you by chance have more info on rear alignment values and process for an 85 wagon 4x4?

 

Yes.

 

 

Look at the chart I posted.

 

That is the only info on rear adjusment for EA82 and EA81 I've ever found. It's from the 86 FSM, though it's the same in all the EA82 FSMs.

 

EA81 rear inner arms are almost identical.......adjustment is the same.

 

If you can't get it in spec with this method, you may have bad pivot bushings on the inner arm.

[987687]

I used that exact same diagram on my 4wd ea82. It took some finagling, but I got it eventually. I just used a tape measure from side to side, and side to center to make sure I had the toe and camber all lined up right on both sides. It's kind of a pain in the rump roast... but enough time will get your alignment set right.

I'd advise unbolting the strut from the bottom and using something to tie it to the side so it doesn't interfere moving the arm around. That'll just make it more of a pain.

[Caboobaroo]

From my experience, EA81s don't have the same kind of adjustablility in the back end like EA82s. It looks the same but I've never been able to get anything to really move on the numerous EA81s I've done. Done a ton of EA82s and been able to get them all to where I'm pretty happy with them.

 

 

As for the crooked steering wheel, Its a result of the vehicle crab walking. Even if you get the wheel straight on an alignment rack, it'll still be crooked. I'd be more worried about bent parts in the rear first.

[suburpy]

Well you can not adjust the alignment on rear ea81 very much at all, using this method could only get it to move about 1mm at most so still got 9mm toe out! Replaced the rear control arm and bush as well, so that really only leaves the torsion tube or trailing link as culprits??, not that keen on replacing the whole torsion cross member atm. The next best bet is I am going to a chassis alignment place to see what the go is, has anyone here had experience fixing such a bad rear wheel alignment ?

[Gloyale]

9mm toe out means somethings broken