Curious front end issue. Ideas wanted
I’ve seen you post parts of this in a dozen threads over the years and hoped you’d chime in. That’s the soup and the nuts! Thanks
I’ve seen a couple sets of instructions for the adjustable strut rods and they really don’t do a great job explaining it. And some don’t come with any instructions!
In their defense it’s kinda hard to explain, especially to someone that may or may not have a complete understanding of the suspension, its geometry, how it changes as it travels etc. Which absolutely described me when I did my first adjustable strut rod install on my Challenger like 15 years ago. Having a gone through the process of setting the length and checking for binding a bunch of times now on both my Challenger and my Duster (every time I changed lower control arm stuff, which is few times each) it's a bit easier to describe just going through the process step by step. It's still going to be trial and error if you've never done it before, just trying to figure out what the binding feels like vs what it feels when there's none takes some feel. And its different depending on what other parts you have, if you've got rubber LCA bushings there will always be some resistance, if you've got poly or Delrin bushings everywhere then there's less resistance overall and the binding is more obvious.
I think it's easiest starting with the LCA's perpendicular, running it through the travel several times to get the feel (it should be close to neutral there), and then shortening the strut rods until the binding is really obvious works best. At that point you should be able to see the LCA being pulled forward. Then you lengthen it again until all the binding is gone if possible, or just in a small window right at the extreme ends of suspension travel before it hits the bump stops. And it may take lengthening them until the binding starts up and then shortening them again back into the sweet spot, especially if your combination of parts, ride height etc mean that there will be a little window at the ends of the travel where there's some resistance. The first few times doing it will take a lot longer to get the feel and figure out if you've got it in the best spot, but it's worth it to get it right.
I don't know if this will help you or not but when I aligned my Duster, I set both front tires on a pair of thin teflon cooking sheets from the dollar store with grease between them. They seemed to work great to let the tires go where they wanted when adjusting. I got the idea from someone on here.
Yessir, poor man's turn plates right there. Teflon plates, even metal plates with dish soap or grease between them work well enough. Just have to get the tires to slip easily on the floor so they don't load the suspension up with the friction of moving the tire on the floor.