Saturday, March 06, 2010 - 11:14 am, by: Matthew Sharpe(Madmatt)
Clunking in the rear could be all sorts of things from a stuffed shock to a loose swaybar.
If the car is crabbing and is requiring excessive toe adjust at the front to correct, then the chassis and/or suspension components are damaged and need to be repaired/replaced
If you wheel aligner didn't get your wheel straight and gave you no explanation why, then he is a cowboy and you shouldn't go back to him. They should start by locking the steering wheel in the straight ahead position, and adjust the tierods from there.
If there isn't sufficient adjustment left in your tierods, you can also re-align the wheel by removing it and turning it on the splines. This will throw your indicator auto-off out too, unless you also adjust it. Really much better to adjust the tierods if you can.
Saturday, March 06, 2010 - 12:08 pm, by: Matthew Tai(Matttai)
Thanks guys: I've had new shocks put in and the rear checked over so I'm unsure wether the aligner either tightened things up or the realignment made the clunking go away, but either case it is gone now after the realignment.
The aligner did say that the steering wheel would be off if i wished to align to stock specs and straitening it would give the rear left wheel some more camber or something i think...i cant exactly remember i'll take it down to the susp. shop and see what happens.
Ben Lipman Goo Roo NT Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car
Saturday, March 06, 2010 - 09:26 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Ask your aligner what your thrust angel is.
Thrust angle= Ummm. How to explain this...it is the angle of the entire rear axle assembly relative to the centre line of the chassis.
It is important because it is possible to have both rear wheels parrallel, same camber, etc but the whole lot at an angle to the chassis meaning excess adjustments at the front end to get the car to drive straight.
This is more common in solid rear axle cars, but could be a possibility if yours has copped a hit.
I just do not understand why getting the steering wheel straight affects the rear camber.
Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 12:09 am, by: Matthew Tai(Matttai)
Ben: Its possible my brain could have just made the camber bit up! My memory is fuzzy on the reason but he did give me one and it sounded reasonable at the time lol.
I'm not sure how bad the hit was since it was done by the previous owner but i'll have to take it to a suspension specialist. I actually had Niall look over my suspension when i had him install my shocks and he couldn't figure anything wrong (or the clunking for the matter) so i'm not sure how obscure the problem could be...
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i'll take it down to the susp. shop and see what happens.
