FRporscheman

I took out the '84 assembly as a whole, including torsion bar housing, aluminum bearing flanges, thrust bearing, support bearing, steel trailing arms, spring plates, stub axles, wheel bearings, hubs, and driver side e-brake, all attached and assembled. I just dropped the whole assembly and raised the '86 one in. I added '86 axles and shocks. I wanted the entire rear of the car to be '86. The only '84 parts back there are the brake discs and calipers, and of course the main e-brake cable (which goes to the handle in the cabin).

My thoughts were also that if the '86 was aligned, then the '86 assembly would pop right in without needing alignment, but then I read about things like manufacturing tolerance of the chassis, how different chassis warp differently over time, etc, and I guess it also makes sense that it could need alignment.

All I know is, you can stand next to the car and clearly see both sides have toe-in and negative camber. The ride height seems about normal though.

I ordered the special tool for toe adjustment for the alignment shop to borrow, I should have it on Monday.

Oddjob

You need to check thrust angle, which is the front and rear toe relative to each other (or relative to the centerline of the car).

Little chance that removing/replacing the entire rear suspension would not require an alignment check/adjustment (of the thrust angle).

FRporscheman

I got the rear toe angle tool, and I figured I would go ahead and just eyeball the rear toe to at least make it a little straighter, so I could drive the 6 miles to the closest alignment shop that is familiar with the 944 rear suspension (it's a shop that does aircooled VWs). The rear toe was seriously so bad that the tires are only 3/4" from the front of the wheel arch, and it just feels really bad driving it.

I could not get it straight; the range of adjustment does not include the 0 toe angle position. It's toed in way too much.

Is there another adjustment that influences toe? I.e., will the shop be able to straighten this thing out by tweaking something else, or did I just discover a larger problem?

If it matters, I had the '86 suspension stored for about 8-10 months in a position where it stood up like a dog, on the banana arms and trailing arms. Would that hurt it? I would think not, or at the most it would stress the trailing arm bushings. Just thought I'd mention it.

MAGK944

Are you sure that all your bolts are tight especially on the spring plate carrier and the banana arms to tb carrier. The suspension pivots at these points and if there is any movement there it would affect toe. If the bolts are tight then it could be the rubber bushes are worn or became distorted when you stored it in the upright position.

Either way I would pay for an alignment until you sort this out. If the spring plate or banana arm bushes are bad an alignment is a waste of money. I know it's not what you want to hear but I think at this point you are best to drop the suspension and replace the bushes.

Oddjob

You cannot "eyeball" alignment - you need a good method of measuring. Toe is measured in 1/64" increments. Cannot be judged by where the wheel/tire sits relative to the fender lip.

Cant sort out thrust angle just by measuring rear toe alone. If you are trying to do it yourself, you need to string the whole car, so the rear toe setting is relative to the centerline of the car. A bad thrust angle is what causes the car to drive off-line.

Rear toe and camber basically move at the same time. When adjusting toe it will change camber, and vise versa. If you cannot get the desired toe, you will need to back the camber off. You do not want zero toe on the rear, you actually want/need some toe-in (I have used up to 0.15 deg per side, so 0.30 deg total rear toe-in).

More often the problem w/ the rear 944 suspension is that you cannot get enough toe-in when running a lot of negative camber (issues w/ track car alignments). I have never found a problem getting moderate toe settings w/ moderate camber settings (street car alignment).

FRporscheman

OK, but what I'm saying is, there's like 10 degrees of toe on the rear. You can SEE it just standing next to the car. It looks like a skier doing the wedge. I know it will chew up my tires driving like this so I wanted to just get it closer to normal, which one can easily do with eyeballing it, just so I could drive across town to the alignment shop.

I closely inspected the bushings visually before installing the assembly, and I tried to deflect the arms to flex the bushings to test them and everything seemed ok... can a bushing be bad and cause my problems, and still look completely fine? All of the bolts are tight.

Thanks for all the input guys.

FRporscheman

It's at the alignment shop. The owner said he's done more VWs than he can count and many 944s, so I'm sure he can figure it out, and it'll either be straight, or I'll know I need to swap it again.

I did this conversion as a WYAIT thing because I was rebuilding the TT... SO much work! If I have to take out the suspension again, it will seem easy compared to the previous time.

FRporscheman

The alignment guy says there isn't enough adjustment to dial out the toe, so the rear subframe (suspension) is bent. Can this be?

MAGK944

Unlikely the tb carrier is bent or the banana arms. It's most likely the spring plate or hub or both if it was hit. Also check the banana arm forward mounting lugs on the tb carrier as a hit might have distorted them also.

As this was a swap and your chassis was good before then the tb carrier mounting points (6) should be good. I would just dismantle the whole assembly and check spring plates for true/flatness. Hopefully the forward mounts will be ok and you will just need to replace a spring plate and maybe a hub. Good time to do bearings and bushes back there WYIT.

FRporscheman

By hubs, do you mean the trailing arms? I don't think the actual hubs are bent, that wouldn't cause this kind of problem.

So spring plates... I guess since it's looking like I have to drop this whole assembly, it wouldn't hurt to just take out the spring plates first to check them.

The car was indeed good before the swap, straight as an arrow. The old suspension slid right out, and the new one slid right in, so as far as attachment points, everything seemed to have the exact same geometry. But bent spring plates and/or trailing arms wouldn't affect mounting it to the car, so it seems plausible. I'll check it out. Thanks.

MAGK944

I call the trailing arms "banana arms" or "control arms". Unlikely there is a problem with them as they are cast and would fracture rather than bend and you would notice that. You are probably right about the hub/stub axle as if they were damaged the wheel would wobble rather than being just excessively out of toe. The upper and lower mounts are also attached by the spring plate retainer which is also cast and unlikely to cause a problem.

Really just left with spring plates and the front/inner mounting points for the trailing arms on the tb carrier. Both of those are steel and would be most likely to bend if a wheel was hit. Good thing is spring plates are cheap and plentiful and the mounts can be straightened.

FRporscheman

Straightened? How? Big *** pry bar, or something more scientific?

Can the torsion bar carrier itself bend (in the middle)? It looks pretty solid to me but it would explain the level of F'd my rear toe angle is. I mean it's like +10 degrees!

The alignment guy said if I can wait until tomorrow to pick it up, he'd get it on the lift for me and show me where (he thinks) it's bent. If he points at the spring plates, I'll feel a little better.

MAGK944

The mounts where the trailing arms attach to the tb carrier are just steel lugs welded to the carrier. Heat and a hammer can get them straight. Unlikely the tb carrier is bent, after a nuclear bomb there will be 944 torque tubes, tb carriers and cockroaches left on this earth.

car_slave

Is there a difference between late and early offset trailing arms? Maybe your a junkyard part is nor what it appears to be. I would check the part numbers on the arms to be certain their correct.

MAGK944

No its the same aluminum arm on early or late offset at the rear.