Well, long story short, I hit a curb cuz my ABS locked up, front passenger's wheel mooshed. Got replacements all around, but the tire shop idiots did not do an alignment. I replaced the spindle + control arm and did a ghetto alignment to make Skull-1 drivable, but it still pulled to the right.

Fast forward months (and months). I noticed front passenger tire wear, so the other day I get an alignment. They said the rear is out of alignment as well. Here are some specs that are out of wack:

front right camber -1.4 (should be -0.1 to 0.9)
front right caster 3.7 (should be 4.3 to 5.3)
front cross camber -2.0 (should be -0.7 to 0.7)
front cross caster 1.3 (should be -0.7 to 0.7)
rear thrust angle -0.23 (should be -0.15 to 0.15)
axel offset -0.19 (should be -0.15 to 0.15)
wheelbase difference (before) -0.65

They said to take it to a frame shop. There is nothing that looks bent or jumps out as far as being damaged. Replacing parts (hopefully) should not be a problem. I do have to take a long distance trip soon. What should I be on the lookout for?

 

Get another opinion or take it to a frame shop like they said and have it checked against factory specs. There is no way you can eyeball small increments of misalignment.

 

Like he said, find another alignment shop and shoot for:
+4 caster
-0.5 camber
1/32 toe
The cross car numbers should be close to zero.
You'll be much happier with that.
Your rear axle is a little canted, most are, its not real bad.

 

Your pull is likely due to the cross caster. Sometimes a bent frame or component will not allow enough adjustment to get the caster close enough. Doing alignments on cars that have been hit often times requires a bit of compromise. The right front caster should be maxed out, (i'd assume 3.7* is the max caster they can get) and the left front should be as close to 3.7* as possible.

Did you replace both the upper and lower control arm?

 

The guy said it was the best it would get. Plus there's the added expense of another shop. I did replace both control arms as far as I remember.

 

I think when a shop can't get the alignment right or doesn't want to take the time to do it, they say take it to a body shop. When I had mine aligned, they told me the same thing. I took it to another shop that was able to align it just fine and they said the rear looked fine to them. The first shop also told me there was no camber or caster adjustment.

 

I don't know where you are located but I am in windsor and you can bring it to my shop and i gurantee that it will go straight. Easy way to look at the numbers

-2.0 -1.4
1.3 3.7
toe i don't care about right now

ok looking at the numbers remember that camber pulls more positive and caster pulls more negative. so by rights you car should go to the left only because of your caster pull. But in all cases there are exceptions like the tire wear and your toe etc. I would be lowering the camber adjusting the camber to make the left more positive on the left and bring your caster on the left up a bit to 3.2 roughly. Try to cross your tires if able and you would be good as new. Oh and you could still have bent parts you just can't see, worked at a shop with a bodyshop attached and I did all the wrecks and cars that got hit did take time to get them right but there is always a way to get the desired numbers.


Ignore my run on sentences and the fact i am to lazy to correct it!