I thought I'd give you all an update on the various ailments I've been
petitioning you about lately.
First, I had the wheels re-balaced. A couple of them were off. This helped
the shaking, but it was still present.
Next, I broke down and spent the money to have a qualified professional
check the alignment, spring installation, etc. I even had him check the
unibody for distortion, since I know the car has been wrecked somewhere in
it's history. It turned out that the body was 100% straight and solid.
(whew!) Here's what we did:
1) Removed the third leaf from the bottom from the GT springs that were
installed on the car. This lowered the car about 2", and GREATLY improved
the ride, handling, and overall feel of the car.
2) Set the aligment on all areas required. Apparently, there was ENTIRELY
too much toe-in, so this alone was a huge improvement in the "skittish"
behaviour the car had been having.
3) I'm assuming it's the alignment that did it, but there is no more
shaking!
4) The balance (in terms of ride height) between the four corners of the car
is still not quite right, and we're not really sure why. The front, left
corner of the car still rides lower than the right. Since this was not the
case before I installed negative camber a-arms from Moss, we're guessing
there is a slight defect in workmanship. The reason is, I've had two
different sets of front springs on since the car since the modification, and
the imbalance was the same both times. For the time being, what we've done
is install a shim under the spring on the sagging side to raise it up a bit.
It was an inch too low, now it's only 1/2 inch too low. We could put a
larger shim in, but I'm not going to worry about it for now.
The bottom line: I'm $300 poorer after 7 hours of labor, (they ain't cheap,
but they're good!) but it's been well worth it.
Lesson learned: If you don't do it right the first time, pay the money! <g>
Regards,
=J=
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