toe in with solid axle rear??

[blair]

Car - My ae86.

motor - 4ag

use - dori

problem - I Have Toe in in the rear

occurs/started when - only just noticed it now that im filling the guards

personal situation - So yer, S series rear end, i have toe in on BOTH SIDES. one side is a little worse than the other.

Just wondering how this could occur and how it could still be functioning??

note: i did not just hit a gutter or anything, its been driving fine for a couple of years! little bit of diff noise but its locked so expected anyway?

can anyone shed some light/knowlegde as its got me stumped...

[stuartgze]

sounds pretty strange. put in on a wheel alignment machine.

[blair]

why? nothing is adjustable in the rear? or you mean just to confirm 100%

[Golberg]

Usually the live axle diffs are a bit out... But I also wouldn't expect it to be noticeable by eye.

[Konakid]

usually a bit out, my diff has 0.5 degree or rear camber, go figure.

prob got a heap of play in your rear hubs our something.

[greeneyes]

We produced toe-out by welding a large vertical steel plate across the back of the diff to strengthen it on the Stanza rally car. When it all cooled it pulled toe-out!

Solved with a big press!

But if I were you I would get a 4wheel alignment to really find out what you're dealing with.

[marvis]

I think he means to confirm :P

[s14seriesII]

bushes shagged

can i have some of the drugs your on ?

wheel alignment on a live axel is usually pretty close unless it been in an accident.. (couldnt happend as a new car) or has had aftermarket brackets n shit welded onto it..

i wouldnt stress about it ive seen cars go for many years with bent diff tubes

its possible that what you can see is an illusion or possibly its made to have 0.5mm toe in from factory ? maybe.. but first would be to get a 4 head wheel alignment and you will get funny looks when they see its a live axel but tell them you want a print out of what the rear is

[Javal]

can i have some of the drugs your on ?

wheel alignment on a live axel is usually pretty close unless it been in an accident.. (couldnt happend as a new car) or has had aftermarket brackets n shit welded onto it..

i wouldnt stress about it ive seen cars go for many years with bent diff tubes

its possible that what you can see is an illusion or possibly its made to have 0.5mm toe in from factory ? maybe.. but first would be to get a 4 head wheel alignment and you will get funny looks when they see its a live axel but tell them you want a print out of what the rear is

Yeah dave he's got you there.

While fucked out bushes will provide inconsistent and problematic alignment, poor handling, all sorts of noises when going 1st to reverse and under braking, inconsistent pinion angle and a host of other problems, they will not cause toe in or out on both sides.

Even the rona, the car with the most fucked out trailing arm bushes EVER scored smooth on the 4-head wheel align.

Agreed with everyone else.

Get a base reading on a 4-head wheel align.

Housings can be straightened (as i've had to send diffs out to have it done before, however i'd consult your local differential and axle shop to find out how it's done, as i have no fucking idea.

[resol]

all cars have factory toe in and -ive rear camber from factory. it promotes stabilty in the rear end. live axles clearly cant run as much as IRS can so would be suprised if it were 1/2 a degree/few mm.


-dan

[Javal]

Quadruple post!

It was said earlier that while it's established that most live axle cars have a minor amount of toe in and neg camber (as you mentioned...4 times, lol, jk) that the amount of toe shouldn't be noticable to the eye.

Hence the whole 'get it checked on a wheel align' to see how much toe there really is.

[stuartgze]

i was saying to get a W/A just to confirm it was out. how does it drive. if it drives ok and your tires are wearing ok i wouldn't worry

[86coupe]

Would you like to swap for a t-series with some toe out? :P

http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/dcimages/7/5/1/25454.jpg

But seriously, when I had my last alignment, there was slight rear toe in (0.5mm) and tiny amount of negative camber (L -00.45, R -0.05). That's with new nolathane bushes and all bearings replaced about a year ago.

[s14seriesII]

yeh nice diff.. that shit would drift before you even clutched it :)

[blair]

yeh i get noticable tread wear on the outsides, which is what toe in does??

hmm.. i did buy the car with a dent 2 years ago, could of been from that maybe..

car still drives normal... well normal enough to slide the shit out of it which is all im concerned with.

to clear things up abit:

- the question isnt really why its like this... its fairly obvious soemthing is warped/bent/whatever...
- the question is... how do i have so much toe in as to see it by eye, but evreything is still functioning as normal? and has done for quite some time? i really didnt think there would be that much tolerance with the whole axles turning gears with bearings and everything... would think it would just crunch and break?

some interesting ideas tho

blair

[resol]

theres nothing to say its bent/broken etc until you get a wheel alignment. cars are funny things they are straight, so what are you comparing the angle of the wheel with to come to the conclusion that there is something wrong.

outer shoulder wear can be cause by toe in, but can also be caused by body roll and sidewall flex. with both my rollas and all 5 diffs i had in them i would get more outer shoulder wear, particularly on the left hand wheel, which was from doin more right hand corners....

-dan

[blair]

^ roundabouts? :P

[ke70dave]

i would have almost put money down on the fact that on a live axel diff the wheels should have zero camber and zero toe?

looks like i may have learnt something new today...

i know they stuff around with these settings in race cars etc, but on a production car?

hows the wheel bearings? if they are on their way out they might allow for some movement? though you'd know about that fairly quick.

and yer as resol sais, what are you comparing it to? your best bet would be to measure the distance between the front and rear of the wheels. dont measure off body panels as you say it was bent at some stage. and its 25yrs old so you dont know what sort of life it has had.

[s14seriesII]

yeh i get noticable tread wear on the outsides, which is what toe in does??

hmm.. i did buy the car with a dent 2 years ago, could of been from that maybe..

car still drives normal... well normal enough to slide the shit out of it which is all im concerned with.

to clear things up abit:

- the question isnt really why its like this... its fairly obvious soemthing is warped/bent/whatever...
- the question is... how do i have so much toe in as to see it by eye, but evreything is still functioning as normal? and has done for quite some time? i really didnt think there would be that much tolerance with the whole axles turning gears with bearings and everything... would think it would just crunch and break?

some interesting ideas tho

blair


in answer to your question it depends how much toe/camber is on the diff but at worst it might chop out the wheel bearings every couple of years or even slowly wear out the splines on the axels but nothing would happen quickly, your tyre wear on the outsides could be from skids..

resols's correct in what he said

and ke70 dave.. this is normally a case , basicly zero toe and camber.. occasionly positive camber more often than negative.. but toe is usually zero or tendancy towards less than 0.25mm total toe in..

[marvis]

So the other side is sweet?

[blair]

nah both about the same.

a theory i had last night -> i DID hit a gutter yonkers ago, was almost directly backwards after hitting a fucken gravel patch! talking a few months at least

so if you think about it, hitting the wheels puts so much load on them but the tailshaft keeps the center braced, so it bends like a U? lolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!

still slides so meh :P

[greeneyes]

Well... the rear toe-in will give the car understeer, but if it slides OK for you then that's not a problem.

I'd expect it to slide a lot easier with toe-out of course... That would make it oversteer.

[s14seriesII]

nah both about the same.

a theory i had last night -> i DID hit a gutter yonkers ago, was almost directly backwards after hitting a fucken gravel patch! talking a few months at least

so if you think about it, hitting the wheels puts so much load on them but the tailshaft keeps the center braced, so it bends like a U? lolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!

still slides so meh :P


top and lower trailing arms locate the diff in the car not the tailshaft :) i dont think this would cause a bend like you descibe... possibly get rear wheel alignment checked first

[s14seriesII]

lol damn datsuns :P

[boost+k]

like the others have said you really need to get it on an alignment machine and get a printout to see how far its out and which direction

my ke70 wagon had about 1.8mm toe in on lh side and 3.8 toe out on drivers side, i asked alot of people and most said they were poorly made and it was just a differance in mounting points, i thought the chassis was bent as

anyway i slotted the mounting holes and have got it to be .2mm toe out on drivers side only, which imo is pretty damn close to perfect

you can heat and shrink a solid rear end for camber and toe, but its normally wasted effot

i think i have about .2 neg camber on my rear end from factory

[Javal]

my ke70 wagon had about 1.8mm toe in on lh side and 3.8 toe out on drivers side, i asked alot of people and most said they were poorly made and it was just a differance in mounting points, i thought the chassis was bent as

anyway i slotted the mounting holes and have got it to be .2mm toe out on drivers side only, which imo is pretty damn close to perfect


What kind of condition were your trailing arm bushes in?

This sort of problem is often caused by them, as opposed to blairs problem of both sides toeing in (or for the sake of the argument, both sides toeing out).

If you get it straight, you'd have 1mm toe out each side.

[boost+k]

well i have a wagon so its leaf eye bushes :cool: but there pretty new... and had the issue before i changed them
(i'm not saying my car hassn't been smashed in a kurb at some point)

[Javal]

well i have a wagon so its leaf eye bushes :cool: but there pretty new... and had the issue before i changed them
(i'm not saying my car hassn't been smashed in a kurb at some point)

I'm going to use dave's excuse here: 'I had my 5 link hat on'. :DD

Still odd though, i'm just trying to think what else it could be.

[Konakid]

play in wheel bearings, bent diff housing, bent wheels?

[blair]

just got freshhhh wheels, balanced up fine..

havent driven on them yet hermmmm (FUCKEN BETTER NOT BE BENT lawl)

chucking it on alignment tomorrow and will update with results

[blair]

UPDATE!

ok. so.

turns out the rear has like .5mm total toe in.

i think its mostily cause i have 10mm total toe out in the front. must of been optical illusion or something!

10mm is probably why my car is so interesting to drive, and why people always comment on how different it/i slide to them!

might pull it back a bit see how that feels again, i had it almost 0 at one point, and i reckon its more stable at higher speed slides with the toe out lol

blair

[Konakid]

id run no more than 2.5mm out each side dude, should be plenty twitchy haha.

[Robo86]

yer i was running 1.5 each side it wore my tyres pretty quick though, got a wheelie yesty and it was 1.5 toe in LOL (dam ripple strips), now its back to 0.5mm each side.

also noticed mine has a bit of rear toe as well. i wouldnt worry man

[marvis]

HAHA. A man's wheel alignment!

[MJ86]

nah both about the same.

a theory i had last night -> i DID hit a gutter yonkers ago, was almost directly backwards after hitting a fucken gravel patch! talking a few months at least

so if you think about it, hitting the wheels puts so much load on them but the tailshaft keeps the center braced, so it bends like a U? lolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!

still slides so meh :P

Ten points mate that is the correct diagnosis, having worked in a real diff and gearbox workshop i can tell you that this happens a lot, especially with 4wds and accident vehicles (rear enders). I can also tell you that no live axle rear end comes with toe-in, toe-out or negative camber except through loose manufacturing tolerences or said accos. The best medicine for a bent diff is a 60- 100 ton hydraulic press.

[blair]

^ or just slide harder... hah!

yer winding it back on monday methinks, tough descision to go all the way to zero or maybe 2mm each side? i lurrrve the twitch lawl