[Shotimes] If you have cut your welds....was: Re: squeaky SLO steering

[George Fourchy]

On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 09:55:39 -0500, Mike.Wojton@us.o-i.com wrote:

>Try slotting the washers.  That way you'd only have to loosen the nuts
>enough to slide them in.  And if you put some marks on the tower where
>the nuts are at before loosening, you should be able to get the alignment
>back pretty much to where it was.

Fender washers work well to spread the load.  I told a couple of folks to use just
'standard' 1/4 inch washers, but fender washers are safer.  You'd need at least two,
maybe three of them, depending on thickness.  The factory plate is about 3/32"
thick, if I remember.   Note on cutting them below.

I should have added this caution......if you have cut your welds at the top of the
strut towers, it may or may not be a good idea to use washers.  At the factory, the
camber plate goes over and is welded to the 'flaps' that form the curved sides of
the top of the tower to make a strong assembly that has no play or flex.  However,
after the plate is disconnected from the flaps, the combined strength of the
assembled parts, bearing, flaps and plate, is less than it was before.  This loss of
strength is mostly compensated for by the clamping force the three nuts supply
against the bearing, mashing everything together over a fairly large area.  However,
if washers are added, rather than the factory offered plates, all the force of
clamping, combined with the weight of the car, is concentrated in those three small
areas.  In hard cornering combined with a rough road, it is possible that distortion
of the flap metal near the washers could occur.  It wouldn't come apart or
catastrophically fail, I don't think, but some bending could occur.

Dave Kegel and I had this discussion a year or two ago, with him bringing this fact
up, and I can't disagree with him that it is POSSIBLE that something bad could
happen to a camber plate that has the welds cut.  I tried and tried to, but I
couldn't!!  ;-)

As far as slotting the washers.....that's possible, but extra work.  You can't just
use snips on them once....you'd have to cut a slot the thickness of the stud.  You
guys want me to demonstrate installing a set at the convention, just by loosening
the nuts?  I'm already going to pull a strut.

George