Cascade Crew

blue89 · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:30 pm Post subject: Suspension Puzzle

I've noticed that the driver rear tire is a bit lower than the rest. Could be because of me hitting the barrier at Monroe Speedway??? Hmm. So I picked up the rear end with a jack from the middle of the axle. I measured this (distance from top of tire to fender lip):

LR 3"
RR 3-3/8"
LF 2-7/8"
RF 1-1/2"

Looks like the rear is fine, but the front passenger is tucked up a little. Hmm. So I unbolted the front sway bar and measured again:

LR 3-1/8"
RR 3-1/4"
LF 3-3/8"
RF 7/8"

Okay, so the front swaybar was holding up the passenger side. Not great. Looking down the car, it appears that the chassis is straight. Doors shut fine and all that good stuff. Could it be a broken spring on the passenger front? I'll let you know what I find when I find it as its currently to the point where I'm taking the spindles off the aarms to drop the springs.

blue89 · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:47 pm Post subject:

I just got the springs out (took me 30 minutes) and both look identical in height. I also pushed all my weight on either of them and they both compressed (or didn't) the same. ? Any suggestions to check? Maybe my ball joint is totally gone on the passenger side? would that do it?

Xophertony · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:06 am Post subject:

unless you want to shell out bank for a frame inspection just start checking/replacing things. start with tie rods and a-arms, then do spindles. (if you have a parts car just do it all). i don't really know how to inspect these parts, but when i smashed into a curb with my driver side front tire, in addition to bending the frame (it looked fine, doors shut ok) i also bent a spindle.

good luck.

blue89 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:07 am Post subject:

Looking at it more, the car looks straight when comparing fender lines, as well as siting the rad support to the roof line. Chassis "seems" straight. I also checked the k-member spring sockets. I'll make measurements of the blocked car to the concrete to make sure its all straight-ish.

After I pulled the end-links, you could see that the passenger side a-arm was pulled up closer to the k-member than the other side. I'm going to try to swap the springs left-right and see how the car sits. Maybe that will tell me if I have a shot spring. This just sucks cause I have another event this friday! I have another set of springs, they just have a lower spring rate and will lower the car substantially.

Has anyone ever used the rear upper removable spring cups in the front? Front/rear springs have the same diameter so I could use the rear upper removeable cups to space out the springs and make the car sit level.

Dewey316 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:17 am Post subject:

Fender height is a bad way to try to do this. If you are really worried about it, the only thing to do is corner wieght the car. Unless you have weight jackers, there really isn't anything you can do.

Search around on corner-carvers there is a good write up, on squaring and then corner-weighting a car. If you really want to balance everything, that is the only way to do it. You need to square everything properly, then corner-weight the car, so that you have 0 wedge.

Here is the setup I use.
http://cascadecrew.org/phpBB2/garage.php?mode=view_gallery_item&type=garage_gallery&image_id=300

It uses a front weight jack, and the on the rear, it uses a coil over sleeve that fits under the rear spring. It is the normal ground-control setup. If you peice it together, get the front g-c unit, and get all-star rear adjusters. That will let you use a standard 5" race spring in the rear.

--John

blue89 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:43 am Post subject:

This is more than me trying to monkey with the suspension. The front passenger tire is 2" higher than the driver side. Broken parts are assumed. But exactly how to determine this is unknown. All I can do is swap parts.

Except for the fact that both springs uncompressed are the same height, I assume the passenger side spring has collapsed. Is this uncommon but known?

Nice setup you have there Dew.

Dewey316 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:50 am Post subject:

Is that a-arm on the bump stop? if the spring is broken you would know, and that is not likely the issue. If the impact broke anything, it would likely be a-arm, a-arm mounts, spindle or ball-joint bending.

Without taking things out, you should be able to measure the a-arm angle, and also the distance from the a-arm mounts to the ball joint. Also measure the diagnals of the a-arm mounts, from FR-LR and LF-RR, if you tweaked the frame where the a-arms mount, you should be able to find it by using those measurements.

blue89 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:12 am Post subject:

I don't think that its on the bump stop, but it might be. That would suck if the a-arm was bent, I don't have another one handy. Did you watch the video? It didn't look like anything was hit.

91RSVert · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:00 am Post subject:

Try another swaybar on it as well. These bars could get bent fairly easy.

blue89 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:06 am Post subject:

The most radical deflection was without the swaybar. If it sat normal without the swaybar I would suspect the bar, but that is not the case. The bar was actually helping until I disconnected it.

Sellmanb · Member Joined: 30 Nov 2004 Posts: 727 Location: Tigard, OR

try removing the swaybar on the other side and see how much that side drops then.

91RSVert · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:05 pm Post subject:

blue89 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:56 pm Post subject:

I picked the back end up and left it on the jack. that stops the back end from effecting the front end. So with the front end on the ground without jacks, the passenger side is lower and even lower yet without the swaybar attacheded.

Imagine if you took the spring out of the passenger side front. Thats what it looks like.

Dewey316 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:57 pm Post subject:

how much clearance do you have between the a-arm and the bump stop? I would compare that on each side.

blue89 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:00 pm Post subject:

The pavement that the car is sitting on isn't exacly flat, but close enough. Certaintly closer than 2" (what the suspension is off by). I measured concrete to fender lip and they were within 1/2" of eachother. When I get home I'm going to measure:

-aarm mounting bolts to ball joint
-concrete to a-arm mounting bolts
-concrete to upper spring perch

Assuming the concrete is fairly flat I should get similar measurements. This should narrow it down to a sagged spring. Hopefully that's all it is.

blue89 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:20 pm Post subject:

I just got home and measured everything. Both a-arms look straight. Measuring and sighting they are good. Upper spring perch to concrete, both within 1/4", a-arm bolts to concrete the same. Maybe what happened was the driver spring didn't seat right causing it to be higher than the pass. I'm going to re-install the springs and see what happens.

Dewey316 · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:24 pm Post subject:

That is very much an option. You might also check the spring isolators, maybe one of them fell off (ask me how I would know that can happen Wink

)

83Z28BlackBetty · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:31 am Post subject:

so?? have you figured things out yet?

~JAKE

blue89 · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:03 pm Post subject:

I'm at work. I'll be off at 4:00 though and I intend to get on it. I'll post tonight what I find out. The bolts are so nice and easy to come off that it seriously takes me about an hour to pull the a-arms off. I've ton this a couple times over the years and always made sure to use at least WD40 when I put it back together to help resist corrosion.

Not much got done yesterday as i left for the lake at 4:30 and got home from the lake at 10pm. Anytime the weather is nice we take the boat to the lake and wakeboard. And yesterday was nice!

blue89 · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:14 pm Post subject:

YEAY! *does happy dance*

I put it all back together and it sits fine! I guess the spring got missaligned from the driverside upper spring perch causing it to be higher. Normal ride height is 1" from tire to fender.

V6 owners druel now.

Thanks for all the helpfull ideas guys! I'm glad it was something simple instead of a bent part!