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allignment issues...


scrap487
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ok, I finally got my subaru on one of those high tech fancy allignment racks at my school... aside from my toe being off by about 3" and haveing 5.9 degrees of camber on the passanger side and 4.8 on the drivers side... got really bad castor on the passanger side, or at least the wheel is 3 inches closer to the floorboards than the drivers side. I also got bad camber and castor on the passanger rear...

 

I know none of these have adjustments... but what are some things I can do towards fixing this? wondering what I should be looking at in particular cause nothing appears bent or damaged. I do know that a truck had backed into front passanger fender(repaired with some half rump roast body work), and a fairly long peice of 4x4 fell on the drivers fender, all before I got it.

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ok, I finally got my subaru on one of those high tech fancy allignment racks at my school... aside from my toe being off by about 3" and haveing 5.9 degrees of camber on the passanger side and 4.8 on the drivers side... got really bad castor on the passanger side, or at least the wheel is 3 inches closer to the floorboards than the drivers side. I also got bad camber and castor on the passanger rear...

 

I know none of these have adjustments... but what are some things I can do towards fixing this? wondering what I should be looking at in particular cause nothing appears bent or damaged. I do know that a truck had backed into front passanger fender(repaired with some half rump roast body work), and a fairly long peice of 4x4 fell on the drivers fender, all before I got it.

 

I'm worried about fixing the front end castor before anything else, because its causing a lot of rubbing on that side, I can turn full lock no rubbing at all to the left, but I can hardly turn at all to the right without rubbing. if I can fix this, running 31x10.50 tires w/ 6" lift without issues is a reality.

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Your passenger side control arm and strut rod may be tweaked. They are easily and often bent. The strut rod should be perfectly straight and the control arm may be kinked where it gets way too skinny next to where it bolts to the crossmember. Sometimes it's hard to tell if either is bent, check it out real closely and compare to the other side.

 

To do a rough fix, just heat up the strut rod at the bend and pull on the control arm by the ball joint with some come-alongs. Or just get a junkyard control arm and strut rod (get both the arm and rod, cause they always bend together).

 

I wouldn't worry about the back too much... The back always gets a little wacky and it's only adjustable by shims... which is a lost art I've never known anyone to actually attempt. :rolleyes:

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most likely since you caster is that much different from driver side to passenger side you might need to shift your engine cradle. If you have a up to date alignment machine (if its real fancy, like a 3D one) you should be able tomeasure for setback which will show you if your front drivers tire is not in a straight line with your passenger tire, if the line between the center of your left and right tire is angled then thats setback, which can be fixed with an engine cradle shift. Camber i would just see if you can elongate the holes at the top of your strut tower inward so you can move the top of your struts in toward the engine bay this will take some of the positive camber out which will help. You should be able to set your toe up ok though.

As far as the rear Specialty Products makes a kit where you can put a cam in and adjust your camber and some of the toe or you can just go in and take i die grinder or a dremel tool with a cutting burr and elongate those hole to adjust your camber and toe.

 

also btw there are no shims to due these adjustments.

 

the only thig with 4 wheeling is you will knock your alignment all out again. i had mine aligned pretty good until i went wheeling at Browns Camp and my alignment hasn't been the same so i just leave it the way it is but you do need to get some of the caster and camber straightened out and for sure your toe too, thats an important tire wearing angle.

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