TheMarco

Hi all,

I noticed last week that my steering ever so slightly leans to the left, so I figured an alignment is needed.

At first I thought I was just imagining this but I realized today that my rear right wheel seems to be sticking out a little bit more than the left one. It sticks out about half an inch more than the left one. I figured that's probably causing the leaning to the left thing.

So I'm wondering is this just an alignment issue or does it mean more (like running the risk of having a wheel come off and such)

kalli

can't really align the rear wheels. check for wheel bearing, get under the car and start measuring what exactly is off.
i've seen this before (even worse) on Pontiacs, but never on a Mustang

TheMarco

I lack the knowledge to make this kind of assessment. I had a look but didn't see anything obviously wrong / broken.

I'm definitely gonna bring it to the shop this week. At this point I'm mostly wondering if this poses any kind of danger in terms of driving it...

TheMarco

Ok so I went under the car and took a close look. It turns out that the distance as indicated with the red arrows in the photo is longer on the right than it is on the left. So it's like the entire axle is slightly off-center, to the right.

It's possible that it's always been like this but unnoticed because I recently heightened the car in the back because I had some tire-rubbing going on with 4 people in the car.

Does this clarify the issue? And: is this something of concern?

Pic attached.

001mustang

Measurement should be identical on mustang unless one of the U-bolts is in **** eyed.

Coupe

I had that once in a former life. Have you slid around any corners lately or been involved in any high speed car chases? Loosen everything and re-center it?

rtintwo

There are pins on the leaf springs that fit into hole on the axle flange. I would say that when the shop heightened the rear they didnt get the pin in the hole. It is time for you to head back to the shop and have a long conversation with them about what exactly they did to raise the rear. Longer shackles, rearch the springs or spacers?

KMatch

Right to the left of the u bolt in your pic is the pad welded to the axle. It sits on the spring and is supposed to be sitting on a pin for alignment. Look at how the pad and spring are aligned. Is it centered on the spring? Does it sit slightly to one side of the spring? Now compare that to the same thing on the other side. They should mirror each other - preferably centered, but if the right side favors the outside of the spring, the left should favor its outside as well. I'd say one may be centered and the other favors the right. If so, or even if both favor the right, you need to get it fixed.

KMatch

Oh, and the rear axle being offset to one side will have little to do with a pull but if it's off centered front to rear it WILL cause a pull. Look at how the rear wheels are centered in the fenders as seen from the side. There's a slight chance the right is ahead of the left. If all of this checks out, it's back to picking on the front end alignment or maybe simply crossing the tires to rule out a tire related pull. If you swap sides with the front tires and the pull swaps as well, your tires are the issue.

TheMarco

Ok so my mechanic tells me they're all 1/4 of an inch off and that it's therefore normal and there's nothing that needs fixing.

Some people here tell say it does.

Confused now...