Lowered car 20mm-- PROBLEMS--help please. Options

[basho]

I've just installed Kinsprings (local brand of lower than stock springs) in my 1998 ST204 which I wrapped so they gave a 20mm drop front and rear , at the same time I installed 2 new rear Boge struts (fronts are good) had camber pins installed left side to take out the excess neg camber (right side is good) and a complete wheel alignment done by a reputable suspension shop.

They also straightened up my steering wheel which was at 10 to 12 when going straight forward to being quarter to and quarter past when going straight ahead.

And the car pulls to the left.

I then took it to another reputable suspension shop who spent 3 hours aligning rotating wheels etc.

And the car pulls to the left.

Has anyone else had this happen--(in any car} ???

I'm stumped--help please !!!!!

[jordisonjr]

I'm don' know a WHOLE lot about cars, but a decent amount, but if you have a camber bolt on one side, Shouldn't you have it on the other side as well?
I dunno if that would contribute to your problem but it seems like they should have them on both sides.

[Spider77]

Dont have a dragging brake or anything? Try swapping the wheel over to the opposite side and see if it pulls to the right.
I would figure that if two places looked at it (and 3 hours, really? Thats a long time) and "aligned" it, then it might be a bad tire?

[delusionz]

did these places have proper alignment machines or what? All the adjustment bolts are there, the computer screen shows the degrees of everything and they adjust it to factory specs range, it's not difficult if they have people that know what they doin and proper equipment.

never heard of a such a problem..

when did the problem start? and what did you do before it started happening? did you hit a cerb or have a crash or what?

ive only ever seen 1 celica drive really poorly and that was because the chick that owned it had been in like 5 or 6 crashes

[Spider77]

I've rarely heard of that problem until i started to look around on other forums.
Which lead me to the dragging brake (makes sense), and the bad belt in the tire (also makes sense). Although that might not be the problem (could be worn suspension parts as well). Hell, the post its self is kind of confusing. I would figure that at least one out of two places would get it right. Which leads me to believe that it is aligned correctly. Which brings up Jordisonjr's comment, if you have one camber bolt, where is the other one? Makes no sense to be adjustable on one side only.
But I think that more information might be needed....

This post has been edited by Spider77: Jan 7, 2011 - 7:29 PM

[basho]

Thanks for the reply's everyone..

Camber bolts--only used on the side that had picked up excessive camber because of the lowering (-1.04 front and rear passenger side) the other side (drivers) -0.4 didn't need correction.

After a read of supension basics I have figured that it's the castor that was the problem.

I had lowered the front and rear to sit at exactly the same hight---bad move-- the front needs to sit 5-10mm lower to maintain its factory castor attitude.

Castor is not adjustable on this car , or if it is IFIIK how--the only way I could think of would maybe to have adjustable bushes in the rear lower trailing arms---I'm guessing , I realy don't know.

I have however removed the 5mm of plastic spring seating I had put on the front coils as a hieght leveler restoring close to factory front to rear hieghts and horay, the pulling to the left has nearly gone.

I have found however that I have a dead front strut on the drivers side and that the main bushes in the rear trailing arms are like bungy rubber.

As the soft bushes (left one is terrible) will give an uneven tracking this will also contribute to the castor being uneven on one side and this also causes the car to pull.

I am cautiously opptimistic that when I fix these next week my problems with this will be resolved.

It's a puzzle to me why the experts couldn't figure this out , as is the fact that the 2 lower strut nuts and bolts on one side of the car were only finger tight.

They were very professional at lightening my wallet though.

This post has been edited by basho: Jan 8, 2011 - 12:57 AM

[jordisonjr]

Well first off, when you do any kind of work on your car, you should go over everything when you're done to make sure everything is tightened up ESPECIALLY suspension parts. (Assuming you lowered it yourself)

At least you found teh problem, and hopefully its fixed ones you change out those parts.

[basho]

Absolutely , installed springs myself , it isn't my work that I'm worried about it's the work I'm paying for thats dodgey, if I hadn't figured out the that the castor was the issue and decided to remove the spring packing I would have still been driving with loose strut bolts-----or maybe not if they'd dropped out.