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Rear end is sittin' funny (lop-sided)[200/1990] posted by Craig on
Monday, 13 September 1999, at 3:28 p.m.
I recently noticed that the rear end sits a little crooked in the driveway, with the left side being approximately 1 inch lower than the right (by comparison between wheel and wheel well). bouncing the left rear results in a "breathing" sound from the shock which I assume means the shock is dead. could a dead shock cause it to sit funny? or is it the spring that is dead? How would I verify?
Note: I recently added the IPD sway bars and am wondering if I did something wrong. Is there something I could have done in the sway bar installation to cause a lopsided condition?
Any advice?
--Craig - 240DL 151K - what a great car!! =^)
Re: Rear end is sittin' funny (lop-sided)[200/1990] posted by Steve Seekins on
Tuesday, 14 September 1999, at 11:31 a.m.
First, you need to make sure that your driveway is level - at both the front and rear wheels - then check the heights. If one side of the rear is, in fact, lower, then the first place to look would be shocks IF THEY ARE GAS PRESSURIZED. If they are not pressurized, then a bad shock will not cause a sag. Neither will sway bars unless there are some damaged suspension parts. However, one thing that WILL cause a 'sag' is a suspension that is not properly loaded before tightening everything up. Normallly, when installing sway bars on a 240, you will not loosen anything that you need to worry about. However, if you loosened the bolts for the rear trailing arm bushings, or if you loosened the nuts for the front suspension lower control arm rear bushing and then tightened them with the car still jacked up, then you may have preloaded the suspension incorrectly. If so, go back, and with the car fully loaded on the wheels (helps to put some 6" high blocks under all four wheels), go under and loosen suspension points, bounce the car to settle the suspension, then tighten everything back up again. Check heights. If this doesn't do it, then you should have your springs checked - remove rears and measure the free height - should be the same. This is quick check - for complete check, they should be put on spring tester and loaded with various weights and measured to ensure that the spring rates match.
Note that often, an apparent sag in the rear is actually a problem in the front.
--Steve Seekins