Originally Posted by
mpaton
Is anyone who's done the adjustment with a chain or cable pulling the stub axles closer together able to measure the amount of tension they had to apply to get the correct toe? This could be done with a spring or fish scale; although you might need one for a biggish fish.
In my case it would have to be a really big fish scale. My rear toe is pointing in .4 degrees on each side. The rig I made consist of an actual rear adjustable control arm from what ever car it came from,ending in round bushings like a "dog bone" at each end.
To connect this to the most rearward part of the mirage rear axle I had to make 2 U bolts out of 3/8" threaded rod to pass through the slot directly ahead of the lower shock mounting points. Then use a combination of flat plates with holes and bolts to connect to the ends of the adjustable rod.
The force required to hold mine near zero toe was enough to snap one of the 3/8 U bolt during a left turn one day!
Now I have to admit that the bolt snapped at the upper right point during a left turn so the lateral twisting of the axle is what exceeded the tensile strenght of a 3/8" rod and not the force by itself that is required to hold it there,but still! We are not talking a few hundred pounds here! Also even though it looks like it cleanly snapped in half,it happened at the contact point where the U part turns straight leaving the axle.
I re-did it using flat iron stock for the U part to wrap around the axle and left enough lenght for a few inches of weld to attach it to straight threaded rod to make my connections.
Then after this repair when I got it up on the alignment rack to readjust the rear toe I was pretty pissed off about the whole having to deal with this crap thing and I wanted to pretty much just buckle this screwed up rear end in an effort to bend it permanently. I had a large adjustable wrench to turn the adjusting center nut and I saw both side toe go well outside of specs (both pointing out) but soon my whole rig started twisting as I'm pulling the wrench with all I've got.(maybe the two rods met inside the long nut?)
Upon releasing the tension it springs right back where it naturally wants to sit so I just cranked it back to where the toe is zero.
Also to clear my rig during rear suspension compression,I had to move the evap canister back about almost an inch.
So in my case to compensate for a total of 0.81 degrees of toe I bet I have several hundred pounds (if not more) of pull force between the points just ahead of the rear shock mount bolts.
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View my fuel log 2014 Mirage DE 1.2 manual: 66.3 mpg (US) ... 28.2 km/L ... 3.5 L/100 km ... 79.7 mpg (Imp)