Alright... here's my situation.

In the middle of the resto... suspension is done. Engine and drivetrain one weekend's worth of work from being done. Then I start on fiberglass work and interior work.

Just eyeballing the rear suspension as it sits, the passenger side trailing arm is pretty far out of alignment, as to be expected at this point. As you're facing towards the front of the car, the front of the wheel is facing outward. However, when you take the wheel off and look at the front of the trailing arm, the front of the arm is pretty far to the left inside the pocket.... i.e... there's not much room left for adjustment to bring it within spec when I get an alignment.

Now, when I had these trailing arms rebuilt, the person who did it for me told me that arm was slightly bent. Said it wasn't by very much and that I could probably align it with little problem, but said he wasn't sure. At least that's what I remember.

Well... I've got some questions on this one. First, the car is still gutted inside... no bumpers... no hood... etc. Meaning there's a lot of weight left to put on the car. I assume that will affect the alignment, even if it were perfectly in spec.... so getting an alignment now would be pointless. So... do you think the wheel will straighten up a bit the more weight I get on the rear end? Obviously the wheel will sit further up in the wheel well.... but will it "twist" any as more weight is added to the car to bring the front of the tire in?

Next... if, when I get more weight on the car and can take it in for the 4wheel alignment, the trailing arm is bent a bit too much to bring it into spec... can the front portion of the trailing arm be bent back any? Will that cause problems? How feasible is that?

I ask because.... this trailing arm is completely rebuilt and basically new. Would be a real pain and no small amount of money to take everything back apart and reinstall on a new arm.

These are just pre-eminent thoughts. I may very well have enough wiggle room to align it properly. I'm just planning ahead in the event I don't.

Thanks.

 

Bent? Wow...it takes a lot to bend a trailing arm, more like a direct side impact....best bet is to get another arm, rather than try to unbend it, if it is bent

 

Well, I'm not sure that it's bent... but I don't have any other explanation, other than the back end of the car is so light it's causing the alignment to go way out.

All I KNOW is the front of the wheel is point out a bit... and I don't have much room left in the pocket to move the trailing arm in further.

And this car has never been hit on that side.

 

If you need to bend the arm and I can't see how that can be done accurately you would be better of cutting the back of the arm and along the top and bottom with a single saw cut and then plating over the cut area after straightening. It can be rewelded easily enough and once cut on 3 sides it would be easy to bend into alignment before rewelding.
Don't cut the front , just the other 3 sides.
It can be done easily.
Or get a new arm but the front bushing is staked into place and not easy to remove, well drill out the flare and the bushing will come out but how to restake??

 

It has poly bushings... which pop out easily. Just getting the metal sleeves out would be a trick, but doable.


Anyone have any thoughts on whether simply the lack of weight on the rear end would cause this sort of wheel orientation?

 

If it were mine, I would remove the spring from the TA, jack the TA up untill the half shaft is level, put the wheel on, and see if you still think it will have excessive toe out. If so, send it to VanSteel or VBP for straingening.

 

The higher the suspension the more the tire will toe out. The 1/2 shafts are shorts when the wheels hang down. When they are level do to weight and height adjustment they are at their longest and push the back of the wheel out and toe in more then hanging down.
Our rearends are bad for toe change.
Hanging down toe out.

 

If it truly was a weight issue, the driver's side trailing arm and wheel would exhibit similar tendencies. Since you don't mention that, I assume it is not pointing excessively outward or inward.

I vote to replace the trailing arm, and do it now. You don't want to put in all this effort and have this kind of problem later on.

 

Norval... thanks, that's what I visualized (and hoped) but wasn't sure.

70Vert... good idea. Such a simple concept I probably never would've thought about it! Thanks.

 

No... the driver's side appears better. The front of that trailing arm is also moved inward as well... but just eyeballing the tire, it looks pretty close to dead straight.

 

Don't necessarily replace the trailing arm. When I had my TA's rebuilt by VanSteel, they checked the TA for spec and sure enough one of mine was bent also. They were able to bend the TA back to spec without compromising the integrity. Once together, it was a piece of cake to align. You might want to see if VanSteel or another TA shop can fix it.

 

I would have to highly disagree w/you on this matter. I build about 300 t-arm and bearing assemblies combined a month and I can tell you that we have a lot of arms that come in that are bent. It's a vey common problem. Just look at how thin the metal is on these arms.

Chumpzilla,
Give me a call and I can tell you how to measure the arm to see if it's bent or not. All you need is a yard stick and a 12" ruler. 800-418-5397. If you have a press or access to a press you can bend them back with out taking the whole thing apart. I would think the guy that rebuilt the t-arms would have bent the arm back before he assembled everything. He must of had a press to press the bearing off and on. I just wonder why he didn't do the arm in the 1st place.

Dan

 

We build all of their t-arms and bearing assemblies too.

 

Dan.... thanks very much. I'll give you a call this afternoon, after lunch. I won't have the trailing arm in front of me so I'll have to take good notes, unless you're open late....

 

Did you get my pm's?

Mike

 

A lot of them rot out from the inside out too and separate. The bushing end is supported by the frame and most impacts are around the wheel area. If you take a straight edge and line it up against the machine pad then measure off that by the bushing end it should be a known dimension. I'd have to check, Danny would know or maybe has a fixture to test. If you're going to reuse them you might want to weld the seams a little better then factory too.

Gary

 

Got 'em... Was out to lunch. Check pm.

 

I recently sent my T-arms to Van Steel for a rebuild. Figured I'd have them do the bearings and parking brake hardware. Although I had not discussed this with them prior to shipping, my passenger side rotor was rubbing against the parking brake hardware (spring retainers were shaved by the backs of the wheel studs) and my emergency brake could not be activated. Turned out that the passenger T-arm was bent, and the bearings and spindles were shot. I was told this could be the result of hitting a pot hole, curb or any other road hazzard.

 

go with the heavy duty arms from ecklers or better yet 2'' offset heavyduty arms.not only can you use 2 '' bigger tires but they will not rust out as bad and this is the best part your bearings will be more centered putting less wear on them..