2 months ago I hit a curb pretty bad and had the unique experience of driving a car home with wheels pointing in the oposite direction to one another. I took the car for a safety and suspension check and got a whole list of bent parts - strut, drag link, idler arm.

So I bought the bullet and chucked on 2 new struts with brake upgrade, new ball joints, tie rod ends, drag link and iddler arm. I've just had the car alligned and got some surprising results.

firstly to the front the camber is a little off but only 26 minutes from side to side (51 positive left, 25 positive right). Secondly the castor is still fairly different left to right 1 deg 2 mins left and 2 deg 27 mins right) this is about 1 fingures worth. Strangely when I first had the prang the left wheel was furthur forward to the right. Now its the reverse, is this because the brake upgrade has forced be to reverse the struts (These are new struts, ie not involved in the crash)?

Then there's the back which was unnaffected by the curb. camber is a little out again, 13 mins negative left and 52 mins negative right. Finally toe is miles out at the rear - 17mm neg left and 7.3mm pos right.

I have a few questions about these results.

- Firstly am I right in assuming the difference in Camber both front and rear is so small it's not worth worrying about?
- Secondly any suggsetions as to how to fix the front castor and rear toe problems and also what may be causing them?

sorry but I'm a real dud with this kind of stuff. Is the answer adjustable castor rods and adjustable rear crossmember?

for the front, check and replace the control arms and radius rod and their bushes if found damaged or worn. Also check you havent ripped the radius rod mount(s) from the chassis rails at the front as they are only spot welded on.
For the rear, unless you have an adjustable rear end just check basic stuff like blown shocks or sagged springs etc. Rarely people bend swing arms and rear crossmembers...
p.s. what model datsun did you crash?

It's a 180bsss.

Thanks for your help. The shocks at the back are fairly worn, I was going to change them next, but didn't know they could effect toe, so thanks for that.

radius rod mounts are ok, as are all the bushes. I guess I could have a bent radius rod, or control arm, they don't seem bent visibly, but I'll pull them out and have a closer look.

Any other ideas

You can use spacers to reduce the castor a little bit. Just put the spacer behind the large washer on the rear of the bush. If you're out by "1 fingers worth", just put a "1 finger" spacer in there. Obviously there's a limit as you can only adjust it till you run out of thread to put the nut back on. I used a proper spacer, but you could probably just use washers.

ie instead of it going

lower control arm --> radius rod --> washer --> bush --> mount --> bush --> washer --> nut

it will be

lower control arm --> radius rod --> spacer --> washer --> bush --> mount --> bush --> washer --> nut

_________________
1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

Ok so if I spaced back the right hand side then both sides would be at about 1 degree of castor. Is this an ok setting?

also what about the slight camber difference, is this an issue?

And if i space back the castor on the right will this alter the toe on that side, meaning I need another allignment?

I won't be able to space back the rhs caster rod to match the lhs. Unfortunately the lhs wheel is rubbing slightly on the guard on full lock, so it looks like the lhs caster rod needs to be pulled forward.

I can't see any issues with the control arm, castor rod or steering arm. They all look straight.

I think I'll just get some adjustable castor / radius rods and go from there.

It seems like the way of making them is to get some lj torana ones, add an inch of thread and chuck a bolt on the other side. I don't understand why the standard ones can't be used. The lj ones are longer but why is extra lenght required, especially if increasing cater / pulling wheel forward?

Also do I need to worry about the slight camber difference as reported in the top post. LHS 51 mins positive, rhs 25 mins positive.

If you need to pull it forwards, I can't see why you can't use the stock ones either.

Just chuck them in a lathe and turn some off so the washer can slip further back. In the diagram below, turn off to the dotted line. Washer should move back, and you can pull the LCA further forward.

I wouldn't worry about the slight camber difference from side to side, especially as changing caster can effect camber anyway so it may well change once the caster is fixed. I extended the lower control arms on my 1600 for increased negative camber (for the track), was extremely careful that they ended up exactly the same lenth (to the millimeter) and I've still got around half a degree difference from side to side

_________________
1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

sweet thanks Dave.

So the only use of the torana ones is if you want to move the wheel back?
I though people usually wanted to move the wheel forward (positive caster).