gaasc
Desperately looking for a title
Still it's better on the wallet than the constant suspension rebuilds...marginally.
constant suspension rebuilds
constant suspension rebuilds
constant suspension rebuilds
CONTROL ARMS! They...hold the wheel I think...they also do...something that means that the wheels are pointing in the right directions....
I will be honest with you, as much as I like to vainglory myself on the fact that I have a rough idea on how everything on my car works, the inner workings of suspension components are arcane and strange to me. A weird and dangerous zone in which things degrade and pounds of metal and rubber are tortured daily just so that I can enjoy a quality ride and where one bump too many means I will careen off a cliff on three wheels. The Corolla has two control arms, and them being relatively new and me no longer having to dig for obscure shit that Toyota stopped building in the Bush II administration I expected smooth sailing, a replacement of components in a decade or when it hits 100k miles, Springs sag of course, but between slow mileage and higher average speeds, my suspension should not be taxed too much.
Imagine my surprise on a night on which a set of strange and terrible circumstances involving a coffee maker ended up with my old woman in the Corolla and leaving a mall just to panic, park at the side of the road, and tell us that the car is "jumping and with no steering."
This is what I was greeted with upon arrival. The steering wheel is pointing dead straight and was not moved between shots.
My trusted mechanic came in with a torch, a hydraulic jack, and a willingness to trust a cheap O-Ring with his life. We moved the wheel all the way to the left, then all the way to the right, and heard a click.
What you see here is a special treat for those on FinalGear with a predisposition towards metallurgy. Remember, this vehicle had a crash in that corner. And the enterprising compatriots that fixed it apparently decided that instead of getting a used control arm or something, they would heat the existing one and bend it back into shape. For everyone else on the room, heating and cooling a metal in this way means that it will no longer be tempered. At any glance, the metal will look and feel strong, but it is extremely brittle. Suspension components and brittleness are not good company.
Up on a towtruck, back to a shop, and then in for a closer inspection. Despite the horrible look of the image above, all that the car needed was new control arms (both, I'm not taking any chances), and new boots. Then we went with these new pieces to an alignment shop and received some good news and some bad news.
The bad news: the entire car is slightly bent, in a "only able to see it in a machine" way.
The good news: it should not affect anything, but they still thought I should know.
And so all is back and well in Corolla-land...until today, when we discovered something is rubbing when I go downhill and brake and causing same corner's wheel to rub and make distressing sounds. Also, the other thing they made me notice was that the right wheel is about two inches closer to the rear of the wheelarch than the left wheel.
...This is fine, this is all fine...
Narrator: gaasc, twenty-eight, a gentle man, a man in search for a quiet and inoffensive commuter pod to compliment his garage. He ponders the reasons why ordinary men are driven to have these as their only vehicle, finding the lack of variety a torment. What he does not know is that the groundwork has already been laid for his own special kind of madness and torment--found only in the Twilight Zone.