1990 celica rear wheel alignment

[jerryls]

Tires wearing on inside- Service manual says you can only adjust toe in, but I can visually see the wheel tire bottom leaning out. Is that camber/castor? I forget.
Anyhow what could be the problem.
Thanks
jerry

[calicelica]

something is worn/out-of-commission. mcpherson struts cant control any cambering. If it looks like a negative camber (inside wheel wear, bottom wheel angles out), something is wrong. Either spindle, ball joint, CV, axle.. and could've been anything you wouldnt know unless you open em up. Better to check this @ a good trustworthy allignment guy, don't risk running it too long. Trust me, if you cross your fingers, the possibility of it coming off sometime isn't too far-fetched.

[jerryls]

Thanks very much. The car has 90K miles. I assumed something was worn out, and i imagine it would be somewhat of a common problem. I wish there was a web site that showed common problems for specific car models and years and frequency of occurrance. Usually, the same items wear out on each type car.
The car rides fine so I would rule out a bent spindle or a bearing would either make noise or show a loose wheel Your right something is worn. BTW it's on both rear wheels.
Jerry

[calicelica]

Suspensions optimal age is around 50k miles, but rears ussually last a lil longer. After 90k, you might wanna consider replacing. Did you check the suspension supports? maybe your strut towers actually warped inward, slightly flexing the chassis. But I don't think that could happen unless you've been maneuvering it real hard these past years... or maybe you can try different wheels on them (rotate) and see if you still notice some camber.

[Caneman]

Originally Posted by jerryls

Tires wearing on inside- Service manual says you can only adjust toe in, but I can visually see the wheel tire bottom leaning out. Is that camber/castor? I forget. Anyhow what could be the problem. Thanks
jerry

There may be a simpler solution than those already suggested. You didn't mention whether your Celica was lowered (with lowering springs) or had oversized wheels and tires. Both of these will cause the alignment, in this case, the camber, to be off.
Cars with oversized (in your case, larger than the 14" OEM (stock) wheels the car came with) wheels or that have been lowered will result in de-cambering the wheels. The normal procedure to allow proper alignment of such vehicles is through the use of a camber correction kit, like the one made by Eibech, which provides special strut mounting bolts that have cams on them and allow further adjustment of your camber beyond what the OEM adjustment allows.
Check to see if there is a different-looking bolt in the bottom hole of the rear strut mounting bolts (below the springs, follow the strut downward until you see to bolts that pass through the strut bracket that connect it to your spindle.
If they are there, they can be used to correct the de-camber (aka negative camber). If they are missing, and you have lowering springs and/or larger wheels than stock, you'll need to buy the camber kit to allow the alignment shop to correct your problem.

[jerryls]

Thanks,
The car is stock wheels etc, no alterations.

[Caneman]

Originally Posted by jerryls

Thanks,
The car is stock wheels etc, no alterations.

OK then, have you taken it to a 4-wheel alignment shop? It may just need a good alignment to correct for wear.