I took my car to have it aligned today and i was called and told they cant do it. they say the alignment is fine and the reason i am pulling is because my right side caster is bent? what is a caster and where is it located? and then how can it be fixed? i did a search already and couldnt find anything useful so dont jump on me if its already been answered i couldnt find it.

 

from what i know, caster is the degrees off 0 from a vertical line made from the top to the bottom of the strut, basically if your struts are straight up and down or tilted to the rear. caster is an adjustment, not a part

 

ok so why would they not be able to do an alignment on my car and if it is up and down or to the rear how would that cause my car to pull right are they just feeding me a bunch of BS cause they dont wana do my car?

 

probly option 2, ive had a lot of shops tell me they wouldnt work on rx7s. i tried to have my clutch done and the guy said its the only car he doesnt work on. realy the only way you can mess up your caster is if a pothole eats your car hole and bends a lot of stuff. i dont know why they would have told you that

 

well the guy that i bought it from did side swipe a curb on that side of the car maybe the caster is messed up but i still dont think that is what caused it to pull to the right

 

you can not adjust the caster. if it is off something is probably bent or broken (from hitting a curb or something)..

could be strut, control arm, steering nuckle etc...

to fix the caster you'd have to replace the bent part

yes caster can cause pulling. it has to be the same on both sides. and yours is not.

 

You adjust the castor buy turning the upper strut mount. I kinda doubt that hitting a curb would mess up your caster so much that its out of spec, but i guess it is possible. They probably didn't want to mess with it because most people think it is to time consuming because you have to drop the strut down. I would recomend going somewhere else and getting another opinion. Chances are, the last shop didn't try to adjust it at all.
Castor will cause your car to pull if there is a big difference between the two sides. It will pull to the side with the most negative castor(farthest torwards the front). The good news is that castor does not cause tire ware, but it does affect steering wheel returnibility and high speed stability. Hope this helps....

 

Uh, tell them they are a bunch of dumbfucks and find another shop...


-Ted

 

It is possible. Mines out about .4 from spec. Guess what, it's on a wheel that impacted a curb.

 

Have you found out what you bent yet? Once you do that everything should be good. Hopefully you didn't bend the frame.

 

I'm pretty sure there's no frame damage. I'm leaning more towards a bent strut. Sooo, sometime soon I'm swapping out everything from a donor car.

Also got one of the lifetime alignment deals from firestone, so I'm gonna keep going back till it's perfect.

 

you can rotate the upper strut mount, it does not give much adjustment but it might help

 

That's for camber.

 

It affects both, you have to find where both camber and castor are closest to spec.

 

It affects both, you have to find where both camber and castor are closest to spec.