Larry Velk

I can confirm that the urban legend of 100 miles can be true. I have a good garage floor and tens of sticks at the usual ride heights and the '86 was still settling at 60 miles and didn't get the last 2 mm's out of it until 80 miles or so. I admit that while our roads here are poor, I was reluctant to really beat the thing over really bad roads. I did short-torque the rear lower control arm bolts for the first 25 miles (had them at less than 60 ftlbs to speed the process). It was a shock renew job and it was very cold, which I'm sure makes a difference. Even old Falcons and Mustangs, with their notorious upper control arm bushings would settle quickly as did Impalas, old Triumphs, Corvettes, etc. - all with double A-arms, as God intended suspensions to be.

Mark

The "FASTEST" way....follow the WSM procedure outlined @ WSM: 44-2.

"- After the vehicle has been raised, starting at the influenced vehicle height, pull the front axle down by 60-70mm and hold for 1 minute. Use special tool 10-222A for this. Keep to the specified time.
- After releasing the vehicle, bounce the front and rear axles - approx. 25mm - a few times."

dr bob

I share the opinion that the large lower bushings are the main cause. The goal of all the friving and exercising the suspension is to get the rested/no strain/no preload position of the bushings to be at the same angle that corresponds to 'normal' ride height where the springs are carrying the weight. The driving cycles need to include plenty of compression at some point, adequate to roll the bushings to their 'normal' position. It would therefore be an iterative process since the car obviously starts the process out high. eg: The first 'compression' might take the bushings 10% of the way, the next compression would take it 10% of what's left of the way, etc. At some point after a lot of compression cycles you'd be darn close. How many? Depends on how deep the cycles are compared to normal ride height. If you have good shocks it could take a while.

The Citizens of Glendale have decided that speed bumps will keep traffic off of residential streets. Cars are forced to slow to 15mph or less, then accellerate to the next speed bump. Makes perfect sense, lots of extra smog and fuel consumed, and plenty of extra noise according to the brave citizens who are lucky enough to live by the bumps. During less-busy traffic times, there's a circuitous route that includes a dozen speed bumps. half a dozen laps of that circuit at about 40mph seems to do a pretty good job of settling the suspension within 10mm of final height. Got a bunch of speed bumps you can attack with vigor like that without stripping the spoiler or the trays off? It's a good start. After that it's spirited driving for a bit to get the last settling done.

So bottom line-- Follow Ryan's advice and attack the speed bumps. Bed your pads carefully, and that means avoid overheating and glazing them with repeated hard stops without cool-downs in between. Then drive the car. Take the long way to Devek for your alignment. Invest an hour or two in a bit of touring before you get there. If you can't do that, reschedule your alignment session. No need to waste your time and money if you have to do it again later. For most of us, we don't know if the alignment is god or bad until the tires start wearing funny. And I think that's one of the things we want to avoid with a good alignment.

As a last resort, ask the guys at Devek what they think. Thay may go ahead and get things right as it sits, then be willing to do a follow-up trim on it in a week or two.
----

And those few extra winter pounds... Mine are well distributed, pretty much all the way around the middle. Corner balance affected? Mine barely affect my personal CG. At least I haven't fallen over yet. The car's is probably a little left now. Adding a couple gallons of gas to the right rear might just make the difference for me. Looking for a positive here, my extra pounds help settle the supension a little quicker.

FWIW, I'm six pounds into a twenty-five pound reduction program. It started with vacuuming out all the old french fries and chinese food debris from the carpets. If I could just vacuum out the fries and chinese food from the front of my torso... Takes a bigger shop-vac and different attachments than they sell at Sears. Watching the makeover shows on TV, it looks like I could make the pieces out of some brake booster hose and some stainless brake line tubing. Takes DIY to a new level.

My two cents...

worf928

I prefer the method from WSM Chapter 40 verse 15.2 (The Book of Front Suspensions) also cited by Garth, Bill and DrBob.

WSM says to leave two threads of the rear bolts of the lower control arm showing until suspension has settled and then torque to spec. Using this method the suspension will settle very quickly. (For me it will settle in the distance it takes me to back out of the garage and then drive on to ramps to gain access to the LCA bolts.)

Sharkbody

Can the spirited driving approach backfire? If you top a rise and the suspension completely unloads, do you have to start from square one or does it take considerable time for the position to change during lifting?

dr bob

the speedbump approach is one I like because the suspension does not extend beyond previous 'normal' much at all. On impact/compression, I can hear the front shocks release gas pressure inside. The body of the car stays amazingly flat. on the other side, the suspension extends back to previous attitude since the car has actually risen only slightly. The rears seem to cause more upset as they pass over, but still it's not as bad as it might be. Keep in mind that these are city-street speed bumps, two feet across with flat tops. Not like parking-lot bumps that only seem to go straight up and down. Those should be buldozed.

I worked in a commercial office building where the parking management decided to install these rubber speed bumps. Tenants started sending them bills for spoiler/ air dam/ belly pan damage, and the bumps were gone in weeks. There are more than a few cars that can't pull up to a casual parking bumper with stock nose trim at stock ride height. Mostly German luxo sedans like bigger Audi and M-B models. Expensive lessons for new owners, and sometimes for parking lot operators.

Intrinsicate

One of the great virtues of this List: it provides the opportunity to listen to educated and well-informed people holding forth with great eloquence and without fear of interruption, on subjects of compelling interest to us, and almost no value to the rest of the world! Long may it last!

Panzer9

I stand with one foot on the body portion on the hood latch receiver& place my other foot on top the first. I balance myself using the raised hood(just enough to keep me from falling) no real weight or pressure exerted on the hood. Then I start to rhythmically bounce up & down( keeping constant contact with the body). This motion will cause the suspension to completely travel up& down without the jolting caused by running over speed -bumps& RR tracks.You'll be amazed at the compression you can achieve doing this as opposed to just pushing on the front end with your hands. You'll still have to drive it to ultimately settle it 100% but this is a good start.Incidently, I go 6', 195lbs. so you bigger guys will really get the job done. Sounds dumb- works well.

Bill Ball

If you are going to fiddle with the A-arm bushings, you only need to loosen the bolts that hold the bracket on the rear bushing on the front A-arm. That bushing is clamped inside a bracket and can rotate some. The front bushing is fixed, and although flexible, it will not change set positions unless it is broken internally. I get different readings by about 3mm in the driveway versus the garage. Perhaps one or both of those surfaces isn't level. However, I can get different readings in the same spot from one day to the next. 3mm isn't significant.

SharkSkin

Nicole, Don't worry about it. Their normal procedure involves jacking the car to check wheel bearings, after which they will take it out and settle the suspension with lots of hard stops while swerving, etc.

With my car, I settled the suspension myself and assured them that the wheel bearings/tie rod ends/rack/bushings were fine, which saved me from having to pay them shop rate for joyriding my car.

Garth S

Should one choose to go airborne, do it with sufficient velocity and brio: then, the laws of physics will be your friend - on the principle of conservation of momentum, the polar moment of inertia of the free spinning wheel ( sic - gyroscope effect) will stabilize its height wrt the chassis such that all will be in place when terra firma is kissed again.
There will only be a problem if one has the hang time of Michael Jordan ( unlikely) - or hits the brakes in mid flight ( incredibly stupid): either would lead to aerodynamic stall .... and a bad case of wheel droop. In that event, return to post #1 and follow the subsequent advice given.

Bill Ball

"take it out and settle" bothers me. Without loosening the front A-arm rear bushing and/or doing the WSM pulldown, it isn't going to settle enough driving it around the block a few times. Nicole has good evidence that her last alignment, done at a different shop, was not done with the car settled - she has bad wear on the inside of both front tires. I had the same problem after my first alignment when the tech told me to just drive the car around the block a few times after he lifted it, and this was done at a place that should have known better. I objected at the time, and the tech made a modest effort to pull the car down on the rack BY HAND, not the WSM procedure. It didn't work as my worn out fronts revealed a few months later.

SharkSkin

Bill, understood -- that's one of the reasons I asked them not to touch it(besides the obvious $$$ savings). I think we're talking about the same shop... "driving around the block a couple times" is not going to cut it. You really have to beat on it, and I'm not thrilled about the idea of anyone besides myself whipping sharky that hard.

My own experience has been that I can get the car 99% settled + or - expected measurement error (read: within a mm or two of the initial ride height) by taking the car out and flogging it hard for a few minutes. That means 5 or 6 "panic stops" -- at the limit of traction, not quite coming to a stop -- and several hard swerves in each direction, again under braking and again at the limit of traction. YMMV.

Mongo

You could always find a 300 lb. line backer to sit on top of the motor for you to settle the suspension

Randy V

They specialize in 928s. I'd be very surprised if they don't know by now how to pull the suspension down before doing a wheel alignment.