My car is sitting tilted and I cant find out why!!!!

[DRJDVM's '69]

To re-fresh everyone's memory.. I nailed a tire/rim on the way back from Goodguys in 2009..
https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=19936

So I got the rim replaced....took it to an alignment shop.... they said everything was pretty close to the original alignment I had them do before....and everything visually looked okay. So according to them nothing was bent.

But I still had one issue....... my rag joint was always very close to a header tube and now it was really scraping. After trying to grind it back, I just ended up replacing it with a u-joint. That solved the clearence issue.

But I noticed it looked like my car tilted alittle to the driver side... the side I hit the wheel on. I messed with a little before winter and then got caught up with the Cuda and blew it off.

Well now I finally looked into it some more...... the front driver sits a good 1/2 lower than the pass.... the driver rear sits almost and inch lower....WTF ??

If I place the front up on jackstands, placed just behind the body mount near the firewall...and let the front suspension hang.... all the wheelwells match side to side.

With the front suspension hanging and on the bumpstops, the driver spindle is 1/2 higher

Every other conceivable thing I compare side to side is within 1/4 inch side to side. With the suspension hanging on the bumpstops I can jiggle the driver side spring just alittle... the pass is rock solid. It looks and feels like the springs are in the pockets and the same post side to side....

The door gaps, hood gaps all apprear to be unchanged.....

So WTF.... I'm stumped. The only thing I can think of is an issue with the spring. If something were bent that bad to let the whole side of the car sit lower I would have expected the alignment to be pretty jacked....or the body panels to be off.

I keep coming back to the ragjoint....it was rubbing but I cant find anything on the frame that looks or feels or measures bent

If the alignment tells me that nothing in the suspension was bent.....what else could be casuing the tilt?

[Romulus]

ouch.

I'll get the stupid questions out of the way.

Are you pretty confident the car was level before you hit the tire?
Is it possible the front shock itself was damaged?
Can you swap the spring/shock/coil left/right and see if it changes the height measurements?

This would drive me nuts.....good luck.

[DRJDVM's '69]

Yeah the car was pretty level before. I've even gone through all my pix and can see where the tire markings/letters line up with the wheelwell opening..... its definitely lower.....and I'm pretty anal, and the car defiinitely tilts in the back and I would have noticed...its not hard to miss...

I hadnt thought about swapping side to side...... I've been running through my head the stuff to change....UCA, LCA, springs, shocks......

Short of the entire car being twisted....what else effects the ride height....springs.....do shock have much influence? I didnt think so, but its crossed my mind....

I'm still confused on how much more dramatic the difference is in the back....but raise and level the front subframe and the back sits perfect

[70rs]

Ned,
Check every point that made contact with the wheel you hit under the car.
Is it possible it hit a mounting point on your suspension somewhere? I don't know what rear set up you run but if it made it that far back it could have bent something back there as well.
Is your front wheel still centered front to back in the wheel well? Could it have bent the spindle itself? Could it have impacted the steering gear somewhere including put enough pressure on the ragjoint through the linkages? Obviously something is bent or been relocated by force. Check all of your mounting points. Shock mounts, steering parts,steering box,steering column(might have been shifted and that would explain the rag joint moving).

I wish I was there so I could look myself. I am very curious now what could have caused this.


EDIT: I just read the thread. I was also cited for hitting a stationary object (5 gallon bucket of roofing tar). If it had been moving...not my fault. They (insurance co State farm) that I did not hit the family of 5 next to me or the concrete center divider and total cars or kill someone. 2400.00 later in damage to the underside of my car including the AC condensor and radiator and steering parts and body work it was all good. Except the increase in my rates!!

[Denvervet]

Not sure what kind of suspension you are running and this is another one of those too obvious things. Do you have any rubber control arm or leaf spring bushings? If so I'd loosen then up with weight on suspension and retighten

[JRouche]

Originally Posted by Denvervet

Not sure what kind of suspension you are running and this is another one of those too obvious things. Do you have any rubber control arm or leaf spring bushings? If so I'd loosen then up with weight on suspension and retighten

Hey, now that sounds like a good check. If you have captured bushings (rubber) then maybe you twisted the bushing in relation to the tabs. I like that check. Good call. JR

[The WidowMaker]

not sure what you have for shocks and springs, but you said you could wiggle the ds spring, but not the ps. if the ps has more height to it, it would of course cause that side to sit higher.

i just kind of went through the same thing. while measuring for the wheels, i had the car up off the ground and supported on jackstands. the rear quarters were off over 1/2". it ended up being that i used a mixed set of jackstands at the front, and although they are the same brand, one was 1/2" off. so, all im saying is it could be either at the front or rear that causing both to be off.

[DRJDVM's '69]

I've gone through every suspension point I can find. They all seem symmetrical. I cant find anyhting bent, cracked or moved.

The only visible damage to the car was the rim. As soon as I got home with the car, I checked to see if the wheel was centered and it was. There was no indictation that the "bad" wheel got to the back suspension. I'm pretty sure I just clipped it enough to bend my rim....no body damage at all. I guess it would be like hitting a big ass pothole....

I have Global West UCA, stock LCA, poly bushings in both, Hotchkis drop springs, stock spindle. The rear is Hotchkis drop leaf springs.... Koni shock all around.

I'm trying to think of this from a pure geometry standpoint..... if any part of the suspension was bent enough to allow the car to drop that much....wouldnt that have been revealed with the alignment check? I would think the aligment would have been way off.....and it wasnt. And 4 wheels were used in the aligment. So the ride height on one side dropped but the aligment didnt change much...

So what holds the car at its ride height...springs, and the mount points of the suspension...isnt that about it?

So what could change the ride height but not the alignment?

I moved the driver side spring around a bit and tapped the end into the groove alittle more....I got it to rotate maybe 3/4 inch and it feel tight now. I swapped the shocks from side to side. I havent had time to drop the car on the ground and see if that changed anything. My gut is saying it wont.....

My plan is to measure EVERYTHING again with the front hanging.... then drop it to the ground and measure everything again...

The big drop in the back is wierd....raise the front and it completely levels again.....

[aany001]

As for the rag joint touching I was thinking maybe the column bolts are a little loose causing the column to slightly slide down and changing the angles of the steering shaft.Does that make any sense???? But for the car being on an angle I am lost cause it seems you have checked everything.Sorry man

[z4me69]

i had the same problem and it was the hotchkis drop leaf springs. will never buy another part from them lets just say dealing with their customer service wasn't fun.