rear axle beam differences?

[treed2@u.washington.edu (T. Reed)]

> Toby,
>     i would keep the stock beam if at all possible. stub axles are likely to
> bend way before that rear beam.

That's what I was thinking. I'm hoping the stock beam is straight so I can
just swap the stub axles and be done with it. I'm just preparing for the
worst since life rarely makes these type of things easy for me.

I really don't have any money to throw at this problem but since the
rabbit axle was free and came from a car that has never been hit, I was
trying to fix it anyway. I've been driving it with the bent rear for some
time. It's probably affecting my handling as well as tire wear..

>     you mentioned a bent rear sway bar??? that leads me to believe that one side

A /potentially/ bent rear sway bar. It bolts to the rear axle pretty
solidly so it seems to me that if the rear axle beam bent, the sway bar
likely bent as well. But I have no idea if it is indeed bent.

> is riding higher/lower than the other. that is NOT a bent axle problem, that is
> a spring/upper bearing problem. it can be caused by the front as well as the
> rear (or a twisted frame), and would definitely cause your tire wear problems,
> even with a perfect rear beam / stub axles.

Sorry, I guess I was a little vague in my description of the two and three
fingers thing. I wasn't talking about being able to fit 3 fingers
vertically, I was talking about being able to fit 3 fingers between the
rearmost part of the tire and the rear lip of the wheel well (the body
kit). Picture the axle shaped like a ] and bend the bottom leg of the ] a
little upwards. That's what my rear axle geometry is looking like.

My car was in an accident before I bought it (hit moderately hard
at ~5 mph in the right rear qtr panel while parked and probably right rear
wheel as well).

Since then I've put in all new springs (H&R sport), shocks (Bilstein
sports) and front/rear bearings (Febi/bugpack poly), so I'm pretty
confident that the axle beam and or stub axle(s) are bent and its not a
suspension problem. Also, the car sits perfectly level.

Like I said, the funky positioning of the rear wheels is very visible.
When I took the car in for a front wheel alignment the guys noticed it
right away.

Thanks for the reply,

-Toby

> hth
> Al