"Hyper", that bolt is contained in a "slot", that allows movement of the a-arm, which allows for adjustment of camber. Therefore, as long as the bolt is somewhere within the slot, it's in the "stock" position.....

 

True, but what I need to look for is if all the adjustment room has been used. By the time I got home from work last night I was too tired. I'll look today when I get home.

 

if that bolt is untouched, I am curious to find out how they were attempting to adjust the camber

 

okay if I'm looking at this right this makes no sense. The adjustment bolt is all the way inside. so that means it would make the tire ride on the outside of the tire right? so it's not adjusted right causing the positive camber? Are you telling me that three shops don't know how to do alignments?!?! And ruined a tire in the process?

 

Sure looks that way!!

I was taking off my "summer wheels/tires" today, and putting the old wheels/tires for the winter storage. I took a look at my pivot bolts, and they're roughly in the middle of the slots, however, I elongated the slots a little back when I first installed a set of lowering springs.

 

Unfortunately it looks that way. Both lower control arm mounts are slotted for adjusting camber/caster. If yours is all the way in then yes it will have the lower arm pulled in too far and have the tire kicked out with positive camber. It looks like you are somewhat local to us, so if you want I can give you the info on the alignment shop we use

I found a stock k-member out in our parts room to give you a better idea of how big those slots are and how much adjustment room there is on them

 

Is this the only adjustment for it? I ask because the last guy was showing me something different saying that it was adjusted as far as itcould go and showed me. It was on the bottom. I would have to jack the car up to look where he was showing me.

 

That is the only camber adjustment point. I'd be curious to see what he was showing you. I will PM you the contact info for our alignment shop. May be a little bit farther drive, but may be worth it to save you another tire

 

Good luck glad you got it figured out. Our cars are dinosaurs there isn't much to adjust just camber and caster just falls in line after.

 

Upper shock mount won't cause camber issues. It's a problem, but this isn't a strut car so the mount doesn't control the camber.

6 is a ton, the top of the front tire is leaning way our, right? I just want to make sure we aren't dealing with a really screwed up rack or some other silly mistake.

If you have 6 degrees either way, something is drastically, DRASTICALLY bent, most likely the steering knuckle.

 

Yeah, if the bolt is slid all the way inboard on that slot then they haven't a clue what they're doing.

Sounds like the bolt he was pointing out was the CASTER bolt. That one goes vertical vs horizontal like the camber adjustment bolt. So... if he was pointing at the caster bolt saying he couldn't get your camber in spec, he's doing it all wrong.

 

Thanks guys. This just makes me sick. I parked my car because I thought the whole front end was shot so I've been saving money to replace the front end. Now it looks like I've been without my car all this time for nothing.. I could just scream. BMR I will have to talk to your guys and my brother knows a shop in Brandon too. I'm going to need a 4th and 5th opinion before I start replacing anything.

Thanks again for all your help

 

Hyper Chick, did you ever get this resolved? I ask because I just got my TA aligned and had 6.2° of caster on the left side. The steering wheel was hard to turn as well. Two shops set it pretty much this way. The first shop was at 5.8°. Apparently those angles are "within" specs for our cars and they just lock it down ... done!

 

still working on it. replacing all the bushings in the suspension first