rmr25

I just adjusted the ride height on my car; it was almost 30 mm too low in the front and about 4 mm low in the rear. Before starting this job I checked the WSM instructions, as well as many posts, threads, and articles. Most critical was the adjusting tool. Several posts referenced motorcycle spanners. In my search I found a "shock pre load spanner" at: www.pitposse.com. It's about 3 1/2" long, shaped like a large apostrophe. It has a square hole to take a 3./8" drive ratchet. With my 14" wrench I got plenty of torque and, albeit with numerous slips out of the adjusting nut grooves, I never scraped a knuckle or formed a blister. I dremeled a little material off the inside curve of the tool, to make a tighter fit with the outside circumference of the adjusting nut.

One of the posts noted that 8 revolutions of the adjusting nut equals about one inch of adjustment. I used this as a guide and got the front settings exactly right the first time! Now it's off to the alignment shop. The little spanner cost me $11.90 delivered.

oups59

Great info.

tomcat

I hope you drove your car around a while to let the suspension settle before taking height measurements. If not, the height will change after the alignment and you will destroy your front tires. And remember you need a full tank per WSM.

rmr25

John:
Yeah. I did drive it around a lot to get it settled, both before and after the adjustments. It'll have a full tank when I go for the alignment next week. Thanks for the counsel.

littleball_s4

Good luck with the alignment.

I tried 3 different alignment shops with optic machines in a row. I was present in all 3. All 3 started measure different and car run like crap afterwards (pulling to one side, eating tires in 50kms...)

At the end, I trusted castor was ok, and set all four corners with a level and two strings. Needed one or two iterations to completelly cancel pulling (1st time was already much better than out of the optic machines) and now it runs straight steer points straight and wear tires properly. It has a slightly strange feeling (camber on the road needs to be fighted with a lot of steering input) but I can live with it.

The point is: look for a reputable alignment shop, because not everyone has proper working machines, even if you can help them and keep them from doing anything wrong.