I'm not thinking of anything rattling, i'm thinking this is now a harder link from the road to the frame - thus allowing more road vibration to enter into the cabin.

You do know if you've gone this far on the project, you can align the car yourself too - all the specs are in the manual.

 

Well, as long as the amount of resistance added by the bushing is constant, you can establish a baseline.

 

Since the lower control arm gets twisted slightly as it swings through the arc of the strut rod the stiffness of the lower control arm bushing also contributes to the spring rate. (There were some designs of this type in the 60's that had a pivot in the strut rod at the lower control arm that prevented this).

 

Wonder why they didn't use a ball-and-socket joint for the front of the strut rod; would eliminate that tendency to pull rearward, and allow for freer movement.

Answer is probably either "noise" or "expense".

 

the next page shows how the bushings are constructed to allow sliding, but resist rotation.

i'm sure there is some twist, but they are trying to show its got more precise geometry with the A arm style

 

yeah sorta. ideally there is no friction in the suspensions movement, and ALL of the wheels movement is handled by the spring and damper, but in real life yes the rubber bushings do act like little springs, although its a pretty small effect. i think.

its why we tighten the suspension with the car loaded and on the ground.

the rubber is nice though as it does allow a multi axis pivot, like the front control arm, it actually has to move slightly forward and backwards as it goes up and down, because the tension rod is in an arc too.

a poly bushing either has to be too loose or bind to do that, although the front to back movement is pretty small, so its again not a problem

 

probably both? the MPV has something like this too, its just bigger, BIG bushings

 

I added a nut to make adjustment easier

 

I'll take two please!

 

Agreed, its not a huge effect but it is there. If you've ever tried changing struts and springs with the tension rods still attached to the control arms you'll know that you have to pry them downward to get it all together. Thats really what made me say anything in the first place, seems like they are pretty stiff... Anyway, to the original poster again nice job! Looking really good!

 

Well Turns out theres an app for everything. its called ialign its 2.99 on itunes and it saves you buying a 100 dollar caster camber gauge. I got the car all in spec and now time for a test drive...





ERRRRRRR.... Correction, Its raining we'll skip the test drive.

 

Hahahaha jeeze Apple does it all!

 

cool app. how does it work? u mount ur iphone to the wheel?

 

You calibrate the app to the floor, turn the wheels 20 degrees out and measure from a flat spot on the rim, then turn the wheel back the other direction so the rims 20 degrees in and take a measurement from the same flat spot on the rim and the program does the rest. I ended up with 5.2 degrees of caster and whatever factory camber is, I didn't bother to check it since I can't adjust it.

 

Rotating the top strut mount plate inside the tower gives you four different pre-set combinations of caster and camber...

 

That's one damn accurate tilt sensor in the phone to get an accurate reading....
What happened to buying a level, tape measure, and doing some trig? that's what I did for mine. Anyhow, good luck on the test drive.

 

Do you know what rotation equals what camber/caster setting?

Also how close do the caster settings need to be from side to side? I'm within .2 degress from one side to another and dont know how close it needs to be.

 

It's in the FSM, & I don't know if it's the same for FB's as for SA's. On SA's, it's as below:



28 minutes of arc = 28/60 = 0.46 degrees.

Oh, and the tolerance between sides: Specs from the SA FSM are:

Camber: 1*10' +/- 30'
Caster, right: 4*30' +/- 30'
Caster, left: 4*00' +/- 30'

Side-to-side consistency is not spec'ed.

 

I know ive seen it on here, but it was a sheet of alignment numbers hand written, but i cant find it for the life of me. anyone know what im talking about or am i misremembering?

 

I know that it's positive caster, but is that postive camber or negitive camber?

 

Numbers look to be positive or zero, but it's talking relative to spec. (see edited post)

 

Well if its spec'ing as Caster, right: 4*30' +/- 30' / Caster, left: 4*00' +/- 30' I would say its a .5 of a degree.

 

I have saved something that sounds similar. PM me your e-mail and I'll shoot it your way.

 

cyipher@yahoo.com

 

Based on the caster numbers, the actual tolerance is 1 degree (+30' one side, -30' on the other = still in tolerance) with an intentional bias of 30' positive on the right side.

Camber's a flat max differential of 1 degree, the way I read it.