[Grimbrand]

The adjustment for toe on these is very simple. If the parts aren't shot, it can't move that much. So that really only leaves two things i can think of: the camber adjustment is not holding (so the lower control arms are moving in and out, which causes a lot of other problems!) or the front end structure is not stable. If your shock towers are moving in and out, your toe is going to move in and out too.

Do you have an export brace? Is your crossmember loose? Something very fundamental and basic has to be moving around if your toe is changing this much.

The only other thing I can think of is that perhaps someone put aftermarket suspension parts on there, and it has a lot of bumpsteer?

 

[Grimbrand]

No, I don’t have an export brace. I’m not sure about the crossmember but it’s in the shop now and they’re looking for the issue. Aftermarket parts and bump steer is a possibility but would it cause the toe to move an inch? I can jack one front wheel up at a time and there is little to no play at all moving the tire up and down and side to side. Thanks!

it is near impossible to recreate driving stresses while you're not driving. But it is possible to look at witness marks around the bolts and parts to see if they're moving. This will not "normally" happen - but as these cars get old and floppy, bad things happen.

So no Export brace. But do you have braces from the shock towers to your firewall at least? Without them, your shock towers and front end will get very loose, and do bad, bad things.

 

[Grimbrand]

Your car, with the crossmember and shock tower braces should feel like any normal car driving around. I can only imagine the terror it must be, if things are moving around that much at low speeds.

The engine crossmember is basically 1/3 of the support for your front end, and without it, your engine is attempting to hold the frame rails together through flexible motor mounts. Not ideal.

Whoever "fixed" your car is a real jerk. There is no way that could be considered safe, and frankly, it is a problem that would be likely to kill someone unsuspecting. Imagine if you'd just bought the car, rolled out of your driveway gently, and romped on it! Grrrrrr.

But at least you know about the problem, and can do something about it. =)

 

[Grimbrand]

Bobby, without picking on you in any way here (you never professed to be a professional mechanic!) any tech who would let this car go out the door this way could and should probably be held liable.

A person that works on suspension understands how vital it is for safety. They know that a crack, or loose fitting is life-threatening. Not to beat a dead horse here, but NO front crossmember? Huge cracks in the fenders? Any one of about 6 things I saw there should've raised red warning flags and bells, and even a poor mechanic should've noticed and told you about the problems.

The guys that aligned your car could not have missed these issues. Shame on them!

But good wishes to you. =)

 

[Grimbrand]

It's possible the car could have held together for a number of years until something like rust finally weakened it. There have been cars on this forum that drove for years with missing crossmembers or braces and didn't seem to have a problem. Even if a car is never exposed to salt and seldom driven in the rain, there could be hidden rust from an earlier life.

Here's where it gets complicated. As the car is disassembled for repair, bad rust or damage may show up. And then more metal parts need to be replaced. And more, and more...

The more you can do yourself, the better. If you expect a shop to disassemble much of the car, you should be looking for a shop that does major restoration. The price can get very expensive. This type of work is out of the league of the shops the car has been in.

I agree that we've seen some nutty stuff. But I am not a proponent for "Hey yall, lookie here!" levels of sketchiness. And while the engine (and motor mounts, and export brace) can sort of hold the nose together, it's sure a recipe for catastrophe. One hard high speed turn from oblivion.

And again - not picking on someone who doesn't know better. You can take a lot of parts out of an old car and not affect much. But the crossmember, frame, suspension - those are important to understand. If a person doesn't understand what they are looking at, it's on par with doing a brake job for the first time, and not bothering to look at the manual.

"Eh, good enough!" on stuff that can kill people will never be okay with me. And people who don't know the difference between a mudflap and a critical part of the car should not be working on them unsupervised. =)