Saturday, June 1, 2024

Front negative camber problem is now gone

 



In less than two years of use, the "professionally" installed front lower control arms are now junk due to the rubber bushing tearing and causing the misalignment as well as destroying two tires in the process.

I soon purchased a set of Moog brand arms (RK620065 and RK620066) and after installation, the horrible front negative camber was gone.  


Taking a close look at he right side control arm bushing was a very clearly torn line that extended almost completely through the rubber structure that connects the inner to the outer rubber bushing and the left side control arm was showing signs of failure with a discoloration of the rubber.  The Moog arms were far more solid looking out of the box and the ball joint is greaseable with included Zerk fittings.  

The decision to go with Moog was not an exactly practical one, but of all things, thanks to the Moog descriptions of what could be wrong as found in the Amazon product page.  When you scroll down to read more about "how good" Moog is, a summary was included of "signs that a control arm needs replacing" and detailed the exact symptom I had.  It was the that inside tread of the tire was worn.

I Googed the problem "tire shoulder severely worn... negative camber", but didn't locate a definitively detailed answer, although I would find hints and general information about the symptoms.


The steps of removing the ball joint bolt and nut (18mm), the forward single bolt and the rearward bolt and nut (21mm) were not so bad.  I had an impact driver rated to 700ft/lb. and hosed the fasteners with a generous helping of Blaster solvent.  All that helped to make quick work of the removal process.

It was more the challenge of positioning the new control arm and to torque down everything to specs took longer than the removal process.  Ball joint was 60ft/lb., the other two were 135ft/lb. and getting around the tight spaces was a challenge.  Oddly, the Moog included bolt and nut differed from what I removed.  I removed a 18mm bolt and nut, where as Moog supplied a 15mm hex head bolt with a 18mm hex nut.  It looked fine and worked as it should, so, no complaint really.

Looking at it, now with two newly installed control arms, no sign of the negative camber.  Driving it around the block and the wavy braking was gone as well.

No comments:

Post a Comment