Bad motor mounts and camber

Bwilsor · 01-16-2002, 02:17 PM

I was just thinking is it possible that bad motor mounts could disrupt the alignment on the front wheels?

I know I have bad mounts and for some reason I have too much negative camber on my front passenger side tire that won't come back. I do have a camber correction kit installed.

slowSER · 01-16-2002, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bwilsor
I was just thinking is it possible that bad motor mounts could disrupt the alignment on the front wheels?

Probably not.

Quote:

Originally posted by Bwilsor
I know I have bad mounts and for some reason I have too much negative camber on my front passenger side tire that won't come back. I do have a camber correction kit installed.

How much negative camber? Did it occur suddenly or after you lowered it? What is part of the camber correction kit?

Bwilsor · 01-16-2002, 03:05 PM

Not sure on the amount of camber (I have the slip at home), but its enough to put a real good bald spot on the inside of my tire.

Anyway here's the whole reason why I ask.

It didn't actually occur till a year later. I hit a rather large pothole and it killed my right front strut. I was sick of all of the bottoming out. So I replace my struts with Motivational units, also front and rear sway bars. The alignment shop told me they could not get that tire to align right. It drove fine for a little while, till the handling started to suck. I found that my front sway bar endlinks were bent up beyond belief. Replaced them and it happened again. So I replaced it with a factory sway bar and endlinks. All was great for a while now I'm back to crap handling and one f*#$ed endlink on the passenger side.

I also checked that the control arm is not bent and I still don't have my ES bushings installed yet. all factory control arm bushings with a 116K on them.

Sorry for the length.

slowSER · 01-16-2002, 03:59 PM

My guess is that it's a tie rod end or ball joint or something along those lines.

MaddMatt · 01-16-2002, 04:11 PM

You really need to get to some extreme camber before tire wear becomes an issue. I run over -2 and I have no problems. I suspect if the inside shoulder is wearing, your wheel is toed out. Toe out will really eat up a tire.

Bwilsor · 01-16-2002, 04:27 PM

This sounds like like an idiotic question but what does a bad ball joint or tie rod look like? What is it I would be looking for on them?

slowSER · 01-17-2002, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bwilsor
This sounds like like an idiotic question but what does a bad ball joint or tie rod look like? What is it I would be looking for on them?

You probably can't tell if they are worn just by the naked eye. For a tie rod end, there would be play in the tie rod. On my g/f's car, she was getting uneven tire wear on both front tires, and it was because of a bad tie-rod end on one side.

Bowlcut · 01-17-2002, 02:52 PM

camber rarely causes excessive wear on tires. its toe that causes wear. if you are wearing the inside of the tire you have too much positive toe. meaning the tire is pointing out from center. bad tie rods will cause this usualy. if you dont have more than 2degrees of camber i wouldnt worry, then again if you have that much stock im sure many people would like to know how to do that without camber plates. shoot for about 1 degree on both sides without plates probaly. 0 toe all around for street driving and long life on your tires. i dont see why the guy couldnt align it either he is a monkey or just didnt want to fool with it. if nothing else loosen up all the bolts and try to reseat everything in a more neutral position.

Bwilsor · 01-17-2002, 05:01 PM

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys. This will definitley keep me busy this weekend.

jacen99SE · 01-18-2002, 10:44 AM

A bad ball joint can be detected while driving (turning one direction and all of a sudden the car starts turning faster without moving the steering wheel) or while the front end is jacked up (try and move the bottom of the tire in and out. If it moves, the ball joint is bad and you should be able to see the movement in the ball joint).

If you haven't noticed any weird handling, you probably don't have a completely failed ball joint.

Bwilsor · 01-18-2002, 10:50 AM

the handling is erratic. left turns are fine. A right turn feels like I'm driving an RV. It grabs ruts in the road real bad, but only on the right side. And dips in the road cause the car to wobble unevenly.

Da91NX · 01-18-2002, 12:41 PM

on a kinda related question does *** have a clue when it feels like the back end of my car feels like it has a slight bouncing feelin when im on a brand new smooth road. new tires *** no bald spots? can it be balanced bad or be out of alignment?