Thread: Wheel Alignment

Originally Posted by 87County

Obviously you've never needed to have a diff /axle housing adiusted/straightened

But theres no adjustment on a diff housing 😉

Originally Posted by 87County

Obviously you've never needed to have a diff /axle housing adiusted/straightened

Obviously that goes beyond the realm of an adjustment.

A couple of things -

1. get rid of the spring-over RTC damper. toss it. It should not be there. Only put a normal damper on - if you feel that you must - it does help prevent excessive wheel jarring in your hands and could save your wrists on a nasty corrugated road.

2. Get a wheel alignment done - it sounds like you have an issue with at least one front wheel.

3. check the drag link (drop arm) and track rod - you know, now would be a really good time to replace the rod ends on the track rod and drop arm. Especially with a wheel alignment. Use quality parts - Lemforder are OE.

4. have the tyres checked as well, on a balancer that can check for horizontal runout as well as eccentricity. a buckled wheel is not always obvious, and it is very hard to diagnose, unless someone sees it on your car and lets you know.

5. swivel preload - if the hubs are a little loose, common practice is to pull a shim out - that's the bushie method, but ideally if the swivels are loose, then it's time to overhaul them, new bearings, seal etc and a good clean up. Good time to decide if you want oil bath CV's and hub bearings or one-shot in the CV's.

6. Radius arms - yes, the bushes can get a wear pattern which sees them elastic in a horizontal plane, despite them looking normal. If you know when they were last done, and it's more than 18 months ago, I'd replace them with new genuine ones.

7. Caster correction - You don't NEED to have a lift to need caster correction on the swivels. up to an extra 3º is a pretty good increase, and caster is a desirable attribute. I'm not suggesting that you rip everything apart and get the swivel holes elongated - BUT - if you find that you do need to rebuild the swivel hub assembly, then I'd get in and do it right off the bat, and to that end, I'd also have the swivels hard chromed, or plasma/teflon/ceramic coated if you do a lot of offroad touring.

8. Lastly, it may be possibe that the diff isn't straight. Usually this manifests itself in a stressed bearing assembly or abnormal CV wear on one side. Sometimes (in worst case) the axle can bind up and wear through internal areas of the housing, causing crack / fractures and eventually failure. This would be the absolute worst case scenario, and the least likely - BUT - it is something to pay attention to if you have ever taken a hit at speed on one side. It doesn't take a hell of a lot to actually bend a housing, but consider that there are a number of opposing static and dynamic loads on and within the housing itself to see it return to it's original shape and it is actually these forces which are the ones which cause the longterm damage.
Eventually when the assembly is overhauled one day, investigating the wear patterns of the halfshaft splines, and bearing journals, CV's and Stubs will alert an intelligent eye to a damage situation. However, it's the least visible problem externally, costs the most to rectify, and is the most time consuming to correctly diagnose.
The fix involves placing the diff in a jig on a callibrated surface, and applying heat/quench / pressure to the axle housing until the swivel hub flanges are parallel in 3 axes, and the centre flange is parallel on the horizontal axis in relation to the parallel centre projection of the swivel flanges. Pretty basic alignment stuff, but you'd be surprised at how much movement there is in a housing.

Anyway, that last one is the least likely scenario. Get rid of the damper first, then check the swivel preload and the radius arm bushes, and the drop-arm/track rod for impacts, replace as required, get a wheel alignment.