Corvair Front Suspension

[2buck]

:cry: I have a friend who is running a Corvair IFS on his street rod. The other day he noticed the inside of his front tires was showing abnormal wear. He discovered his upper ball joints were shot so he replaced them.  When he went to have the front end aligned the shop told him they could not correct his camber. He has checked and can not buy an offset upper bushing shaft which would give him a little more latitude. He is now entertianing having his front crossmember tweeked by a chassis shop. He can not figure how this problem arose since the car has been doing fine for 20 years until recently. Anyone with some ideas to investigate? As I write this I am thinking the trouble may be in the bushings on his lower control arms. If they are deformed from years of use this might not allow the upper adjustment to compensate.
Thanks
Bucky

[GPster]

I'm not a front suspension man but I am some familiar with Corvairs. Because of the to different lengths between upper and lower "A" frame could the problem be settling of the springs. In my mind most of these set-ups start with the lower "A" frame paralell to the ground. If it has settled too much maybe the upper "A" frame with its shorter arc can't correct. Maybe Purplepickup can give you a better answer. GPster

[Leon]

That's the first thing I'd check is to make sure the lower arms are parallel.  If they're not the uppers will be leaning in too much and almost impossible to correct.

[sirstude]

Check the upper control arm bushings, they go bad and then need the offset mounts.

Doug

[model a vette]

I have some experience with Corvairs and own one now.
All the bushings should be checked. Normally the crossmembers will not bend unless they rot out in the center.
On 1965-69 Corvairs the camber is adjusted with an eccentric where the lower arm attaches to the crossmember. The eccentric goes thru the lower arm bushing. The shop may not be aware that this is the place to make the adjustment. If the eccentric is frozen then it can't be adjusted.
Clark's Corvair (www.corvair.com) has replacement parts.
I don't think there are "offset" shafts available for the Corvair.

[2buck]

I heard from my friend with the alignment problems. He took it to a shop that has the equipment to align and straighten frames. It turned out to be a bent front Corvair crossmember. This damage happened two years ago when going thru Nashville to the NSRA Nats. He had a front tire blowout doing in excess of 70MPH. The impact of the car running on the shredded tire/rim damaged the front crossmember's integrity. I am suprised it didn't cause damage to the lower control arm. The shop remarked that it took a lot of hydraulic force to get it back in alignment.

[model a vette]

It must have taken some hit to bend it! The Corvair crossmember is usually tied to the frame in six places and most times the original crossmember doesn't have to be taken out. This means the crossmember has more support than in the stock corvair.