Prothane Urethane Radius Arm Bushings Affect Caster?

[kinguin7]

When my car was aligned a year and a half ago, the printout showed everything in spec. I recently replaced a tie rod and installed Prothane Urethane bushings in that corner at the same time (passenger front). As of right now, only that corner has urethane bushings, the rest are original afaik. The radius arm bushings were installed larger back, thinner front. Snugged while in the air, then torqued to ~35lb/ft after placing the car back on the ground. Alignment printout today shows 1.7 degrees caster, compared to 3.2 last year. What's going on? Do I need to tighten it further, swap them so the thinner one is behind, or what? Or do you think the change in caster is unrelated to the bushing install?

Sidenote, the steering attempts to turn to lock when driving backwards. Is this normal? If not, what's causing it? It's done it since I got the car, seems unaffected by the change in alignment. Power steering works fine, though it has a remanufactured rack.

[wed3k]

if the wheels are in the air and you go reverse will the wheels turn?

maybe sounds like the steering rack is bias to one side? never heard of a car doing that though.

[Losiracer2]

bumping this since I'm doing those bushings this weekend.

But according to Energy Suspension, the larger bushing goes in front and the smaller bushing in the rear.

[bassrock234]

The caster should be adjustable via the tension rods (im assuming thats what you mean by radius arm, but everyone calls them something different) and could cause the steering to act funny. Get an alignment.

[illinois_erik]

what side is it? My alignment guy at work when doing mine, mentioned that alot of cb7s, the driver LCA bends and throws off the caster also. everything else was in spec, i just have a slight pull to the left at highway speeds.

oh and mixing rubber and poly like that isnt a good idea. if you dont change the other rubber to poly, youll probably always have specs thatll drift over time.

[Cb_JoeyG]

The caster adjustment requires installing washers at the front or back of the strut rods (lateral, radius rods)

[bassrock234]

I've never looked at mine before, because my caster has always been within spec, but do they not have a nut on the back and the front of the crossmember where the front of them connects? example: you'd loosen the front nut and tighten the rear to move the caster towards the back of the car, or loosen the rear nut and tighten the front nut to move the caster towards the front of the car?

[xkjnboix]

the front and rear bushing each have their own part number. are you 100% sure you put them in correctly??

also your caster being closer to 0 is a good thing. caster should be 0 and tow should be 0, camber doesnt matter within reason (4-5 degrees max before you see noticeable wear).

read the OEM service manual and you will see that to adjust caster you tighten or loosen the radius rods and insert shims on the side opposite the front bumper to compensate for loosening.

[wisdom62]

You should check the installation of the bushings. The Large Bushing goes in the front and the smaller one goes in the back.

I just replaced my bushings and I almost made the same mistake.

Also the smaller tapered ends go towards the outside and the larger ends should be in the inside.

You would usually notice if its off because the radius arm shouldn't line up very well with the lower control arm.

Hope this helps.