Camber adjustment/rack and pinion
First, I don't care if you're doing an alignment right now while you type with one hand, it doesn't change the facts. Doing them often also does not change the facts, and a quick review of this board will show you that there are plenty of shops out there that perform alignments professionally that have royally screwed up the settings on many members cars. Which is why I do my own alignments and have for years. And it doesn't matter if I've done a hundred or a million, the A-body suspension geometry is still the same.
Second, it doesn't matter if everything is in the right place to start. Even if the strut rod is too short, lengthening it pushes the lower ball joint toward the rear of the car. If you keep the upper ball joint in place and move the lower balljoint rearward, that decreases the amount of positive caster, or adds negative caster, depending on what your setting was to begin with. Now, if the strut rod is too short to start off with it needs to be longer as that will cause other issues, but your caster setting will still change toward the negative. Really easy to see, if you move the bottom back and keep the top in place, you're reducing positive caster.
When using adjustable strut rods on these cars the adjustments do not have to be taken to "extremes" to induce binding. Setting the adjustable strut rods on my own cars I have found that the LCA's can go from completely free with no binding at all from bumpstop to bumpstop to getting binding at the extreme ends of the range of travel with only a full turn on the adjustable strut rods. Now, that can depend on the other suspension components used and how the ride height and range of travel are set, but it's not like an extreme change in length is necessary to create binding. If you use Delrin or poly LCA bushings any binding or resistance becomes more obvious, with rubber bushings at the LCA you're always working against the resistance from the flexing rubber.
And the fact remains, the purpose of the strut rods is not to adjust the caster setting. They're there to locate the LCA, and their length (if adjustable) should be set so the LCA travels freely, not to get to a specific alignment setting. That's what the eccentric bolts are for.
First, I don't care if you're doing an alignment right now while you type with one hand, it doesn't change the facts. Doing them often also does not change the facts, and a quick review of this board will show you that there are plenty of shops out there that perform alignments professionally that have royally screwed up the settings on many members cars. Which is why I do my own alignments and have for years. And it doesn't matter if I've done a hundred or a million, the A-body suspension geometry is still the same.
Second, it doesn't matter if everything is in the right place to start. Even if the strut rod is too short, lengthening it pushes the lower ball joint toward the rear of the car. If you keep the upper ball joint in place and move the lower balljoint rearward, that decreases the amount of positive caster, or adds negative caster, depending on what your setting was to begin with. Now, if the strut rod is too short to start off with it needs to be longer as that will cause other issues, but your caster setting will still change toward the negative. Really easy to see, if you move the bottom back and keep the top in place, you're reducing positive caster.
When using adjustable strut rods on these cars the adjustments do not have to be taken to "extremes" to induce binding. Setting the adjustable strut rods on my own cars I have found that the LCA's can go from completely free with no binding at all from bumpstop to bumpstop to getting binding at the extreme ends of the range of travel with only a full turn on the adjustable strut rods. Now, that can depend on the other suspension components used and how the ride height and range of travel are set, but it's not like an extreme change in length is necessary to create binding. If you use Delrin or poly LCA bushings any binding or resistance becomes more obvious, with rubber bushings at the LCA you're always working against the resistance from the flexing rubber.
And the fact remains, the purpose of the strut rods is not to adjust the caster setting. They're there to locate the LCA, and their length (if adjustable) should be set so the LCA travels freely, not to get to a specific alignment setting. That's what the eccentric bolts are for.
