[mpboy]

my passenger side front tire is trashed. my buddy works at an alignment shop and hooked me up with a free alignment. I have been chasing this problem for a while. The right fronts camber is way off (talking like 2-2.5 degrs) and the caster has it pushed back towards the back and he says that's as good as he can get it and that something is bent or not right down there. When the suspension travels it has a bad pop. In my quest to chase it down, i discovered that the shock mount bracket that has the two studs that go through the camber adjustment plate was bent. I know it sounds like a lower control arm, but i have checked it and its straight. the only other thing i can think of is the spindle, but it did not look torn up. the car has a 1.5inch drop and its an 02 gt. no other suspension mods other then the drop. sorry for the long post, but im at my wits end

[ajm]

Been wrecked before?

[Lefty]

Have you tried getting aftermarket C/C plates for the alignment aspect?

And +1 on ajm's question?

[limited]

K-member?

[C MY 4D]

Well either the k-member has moved, the lower control arm is bent, the spindle is bent or the strut is bent.

[BLK01SS]

Check your ball joints......?

[mpboy]

more specifics. never been wrecked/cube kissed. the shocks are new and the old ones were not bent. i took the lower control arm off and compared it to a new one and it didn't seem bent, i know they can be damaged and not show it. the k member has never been removed. when i pulled the engine i did it from the top, the closest i got to the k member was the motor mounts. i have not checked the spindles, but that would be the only thing i havent checked, my ? is what the hell could break down there to cause the shock mount bracket to bend? that thing is thick ass metal, also the shock tower were the camber plate sits was pushed up slightly

[mpboy]

there isnt much that could cause the camber to be that bad and the caster to be that pushed back. if you were to look at it you would swear it had been wrecked. i dont know man im to the point where im just going to start replacing it all, but there isnt much to cause the wheel to pull in that bad

[ajm]

Do you have some string and another person handy and/or a measuring tape?

If so get your wheels straight and measure the gap between your tire and rear of the fender and gap between the tire and front of the bumper on each side using a the tape measure and compare.

If you have another person handy using the string or long tape measure measure from the rear of the front tire to the front of the rear tire on each side and compare.

May sound stupid but its a starting point to see whats going on w/o guessing and saying "oh its this part, its this part" etc etc.

[mpboy]

you can sit in front of the car and see the camber is wayyyyyyyy off, and if you can see it that's bad, and the back of the tire is pushed 1 to 1 1/2 inches further than the driver wheel.. so its cambered really negative and pushed towards the trunk

[ajm]

hmm..and youre positive its never been wrecked, ran off the road and slammed a curb good, etc; original owner?

[mpboy]

im sure. as much as i hate to admit it, it ran fine before i rebuilt the motor. when my motor blew i didn't know much about cars and didn't have the money to get it fixed so i did it all my self. so im sure it was something i did. now that i know what im doing (a least i act like i do) im trying to retrace my steps to see if i broke/unbolted/under tightened something

[ajm]

maybe you accidently unbolted some bolts on the kmember? just an idea. Apart from the collision side of things I really dont have too many suggestions for figuring out whats up other than taking the wheel off and doing a little measuring but once again pointless if its never been smashed. Id imagine if the k member were to move back on you on the left side, it would move foward on the right side making the gap between the bumper and front of the front tire off as well.

[mpboy]

i think im going to just pull that whole side off and trace it from the k member down. I was wondering the k member thing my self, im sure i didn't touch it, but you never know, and if the k member was dropped would it effect the other side?

[ajm]

Yea, usually what you have on one side youre gonna have on the other side. For example if your k member is pushed back on the left side its usually gonna be pushed foward on the right. Unless it was slid back evenly which doesnt seem to be the case in your situation since the gap between the rear of the tire and fender is smaller on one side than the other right? If you get a chance take a look under the car and see if you can see some "bolt rings" around where the kmember bolts up to see if its moved any.

[mpboy]

yea all the other tires lined up fine on the alignment, its just that tire, somthing is bent, i just have to find it

[ajm]

Yea definitely sounds like it. Id jack it up, take off both tires and get to it with a tape measure measuring and comparing both sides.

[ajm]

wasnt thinkin right lol

[mpboy]

sorry to bring up an old post. The problem was the control arm bushings. One of the bushings was pushed in and torn and that cause the control arm to sit to far up and back. There is still a popping noise on some bumps that i can feel through the floor, im starting to think it could be a motor/tranny mount, because im pretty sure the front end is good

[njstang]

man you had me stumped with this one lol good to hear you found out what the problem was and got it taken care of, as for the popping noise i would just pull the tire and go over all the nuts and bolts again just making sure they are tight, also check and make sure your frunt strut isnt loose either, it could be moving around when its compressing when u hit a bump.