front end ride height adjustment options ea82

[Humble Nuto 53]

what are ya using to adjust your ride height in the front of ea82 bodies?

 

even at the lowest setting ive a positive camber issue...

 

i pulled the adjustable stock struts and swapped in some non adjust struts

from an early 90's 4x wagon and still have same problem.

 

seems like i need to lose around 2" of strut height.

 

dug through monroe online to see if there are shorter struts avail, but

nothing pops out for this 86 3dr cpe 4x.

 

cannot find anything bent underneath, both passenger and drivers side are

equally affected.

 

is it possible someone installed ea81 control arms or crossmember?

 

getting ready to pull the fenders and use hydraulics to bend the shock towers

in a bit

 

any ideas?

 

 

thx

[TahoeFerrari]

Saw your earlier thread about uneven tire wear and then this thread.

 

Check this thread out and look at the picture showing the 2WD XT struts compared to a 4WD strut. The XT struts may solve your problem.

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=31804&highlight=lowering+ea82

 

I have an '87 3-door ea82 spfi d/r 5spd 4wd and an '89 wagon ea82 spfi d/r 5spd 4wd. As near as I can tell, suspension & drive trains are identical. Both have some positive camber on the front tires in their stock configuration which contributes to the outside of the front tires rounding over faster than you'd expect.

 

I have not none anything to correct it (the camber) yet, but am considering going with 2wd XT struts on the front - at least on the 3-door. If I do it, it will be more for handling performance than for tire wear.

 

In any case, to even out tire wear you should be rotating your tires. Something extra I have been doing is to reverse all my tires on the rims at about 40-50% through their estimated life. For example, if I buy a set of tires that I expect to last 50K miles, I will rotate them every 5K miles and reverse and re-balance them on the rims after 20-25K miles so that all the faster wearing outside tire edges are now on the inside. It costs a bit extra to reverse the tires, but you should be rebalancing periodicaly already anyhow. I've been doing this for over 800K miles on two '82 EA81 4wd hatchbacks and now on the two EA82s and it makes a considerable difference in how much use you can get out of a set of tires. In fact I usually wind up retiring a set of tires because 1) they are just getting too old or 2) I hit something in the road and trash one tire of the set rather than because I've worn the set of tires out. Note that I also typically run about 34-36 psi in my tires which also makes a difference in wear (as well as mpg).

 

Hope this helps.

[Humble Nuto 53]

my ea81 hatch is set at the top of its adjustment and does not exhibit the

positive camber (odd eh?) havent had to rotate on that either.

 

none of the previous wagons/hatches had this issue, so i figured it MUST be

some previous owner modifications.

 

guess its just the individual vehicles occationally having variance in the body geometry

 

im certain shorter struts would solve the problem, gonna have to search the yards for a 2wd XT.... old sube stuff around here is getting scarce

 

do appreciate the info, the search begins in the mornin (oh joy!)

 

lol

[TahoeFerrari]

Yes, there are always slight differences in overall geometry, but they probably only account for some small differences in the static camber.

 

More likely causes of a significant difference is 1) weight on the front end or 2) weaker/stronger than normal springs on the front struts. Springs can weaken over time and this will result in less positive camber.

 

So, with uncompressed length the same, a softer spring should lower the front end and reduce the positive camber but would also change the handling and overall ride quality.

[MorganM]

is it possible someone installed ea81 control arms or crossmember?

 

I have two spare EA82 control arms in my garage if you wanna try and swap them or just compare to see if this is true.

 

Send me a PM if you want to come look at them.

[Humble Nuto 53]

thx a mill and a half morgan, i measured between the ea81 and ea82 and its got the right arms, *unless theres more than one control arm for the ea82*

 

preciate it though ;^)