UKKid35

I've replaced my front shocks using the method described by Tony. I didn't need to loosen the lower ball joint brackets, so the alignment shouldn't have been thrown out.

Unfortunately the car now pulls badly to the left, independent of road speed. I took the car to a shop with a Hunter DSP 400, which showed the left castor as 5 and the right as 3. Surely this should have made the car pull to the right?
They then tried adjusting the left side castor and declared that it wasn't possible to bring it back to spec.

I should also mention that my ride height is too low, about 160, and I can't adjust it as I didn't replace the seized adjuster nuts.

What do I do now? I'm at a complete loss.

One last thought, perhaps I unwittingly swapped the right and left struts so that the wheel load is now unbalanced? If I measure the ride height and the left is lower would this cause the pull to the left?

Jim_H

After I 'tapped' the wall at the track I had to replace the lower control arm to get my drivers side caster specs correct.
When I was pulling the old one off I noticed that it had actually turned/ pivoted a bit and with some force I may have been able to get it aligned properly and used the old one.

Erik - Denmark

Paul,
I think you have longitudinal play in the upper A arm rubber busses -
That is relatively easy to cure with two special made poly busses app 25x58x4mm placed at the upper rear links - Good luck
Regards from Erik in Denmark

Old & New

Paul,

Certainly retrace your steps if the car was in better alignment before you started the work. Perhaps something is not bolted up completely or slightly out of place? Critically compare side to side.

Garth S

Yet another thing is that unless you have directional tyres (we use tires here ), they may have found their way to the wrong side. Look, and then lightly feel the tread of each tire - assymetric wear can be better detected by feel than sight.
I mention this, because if your car had been slightly out of alignment, the tires would wear in to take a compensating 'set' - that makes everything seem OK - if they get switched side to side, the off spec condition is dramatically amplified!
Tire pressure cam compound things as well.
The 160mm height is low, but not catastrophic: it may restrict camber adjustment, but you mentioned castor - that would point to Old&New's post.
BTW, just because the shop has a Hunter 400 machine is no assurance they didn't lift the front end for a customary check - do you know that it was not lifted?

UKKid35

I've resigned myself to stripping it down and swapping the struts round. I have three evenings to do the work before going away for a long weekend, for which I need the car. Tyres haven't been swapped, and they are directional. I'd previously checked the lower control arm bolts and re-torqued them as specified in the WSM - after the suspension settled.

I did wonder whether the car seemed low on the left, and when I asked my girlfriend if she thought the car was level she also said it seemed low on the left. I really just need to measure the height to confirm. The only things that could mess up the ride height I guess would be the springs not in the perches properly (but that was checked carefully as the struts were reassembled), and the struts being different from left to right and replaced the wrong way round.

The shop did lift the car when my back was turned, but not until after the readings were taken, obviously I wasn't charged as they failed to complete the work.

One other little irritation is that the rubber boot on the lower balljoint is damaged, the WSM says replace the whole balljoint. I really hate it when you have to spend $$$ on a part when it's just a $2 peice of rubber that's damaged - is there anyway round this? (not that I'm going to deal with that now, it's going back on as it is).

Erik - Denmark

Paul,
No problem, you can buy new rubber boots - A normal garage has them