97 Integra, front left.
I was doing axles the other day and part of the work is to unbolt the lower control arm from the damper fork. Previously I've replaced the shock/strut/damper on the car and the spring's end wasn't lining up at the "valley" of the shock/strut/damper, but about 1" away. You can think of it as the spring was installed with about 5-10 deg off at the bottom of the strut.
When I install the damper fork back on, I noticed that I couldn't push the bolt back in unless I use a lot of force to pull one side of the fork to line it up. My understanding is that the 2 holes on the damper fork that bolt to the lower control arm should line up instead of off center from the factory by design.
This corner of my car has a toe out type of tire wear, and I suspect that this is the reason (the fork is constantly trying to bent the control arm outward). However the control arm doesn't "look" bented and the bushing seems to be in acceptable shape (minor cracks expected at 240k miles).
Should I replace the fork and the lower control arm? what about compressing and lining up the spring inside the strut again? Is it normal at all? and was it caused by curbing anything?
I was doing axles the other day and part of the work is to unbolt the lower control arm from the damper fork. Previously I've replaced the shock/strut/damper on the car and the spring's end wasn't lining up at the "valley" of the shock/strut/damper, but about 1" away. You can think of it as the spring was installed with about 5-10 deg off at the bottom of the strut.
When I install the damper fork back on, I noticed that I couldn't push the bolt back in unless I use a lot of force to pull one side of the fork to line it up. My understanding is that the 2 holes on the damper fork that bolt to the lower control arm should line up instead of off center from the factory by design.
This corner of my car has a toe out type of tire wear, and I suspect that this is the reason (the fork is constantly trying to bent the control arm outward). However the control arm doesn't "look" bented and the bushing seems to be in acceptable shape (minor cracks expected at 240k miles).
Should I replace the fork and the lower control arm? what about compressing and lining up the spring inside the strut again? Is it normal at all? and was it caused by curbing anything?