I'll say this much...

Don, you remember that issue I had after putting my new rear struts on? There was one strut I could not tighten all the way down, so it was loose in the mount. That, I think, is worse than having a bad mount, and my rear wheel still held it'* camber position. And...can anyone name an instance when a mount failed that catastrophically? I remember a post Wren did when he did his rears on one of his cars..he thought for sure his mounts were toast....but when he cleaned them up, they actually looked mint and reused them.

I hate saying this, but I think you took apart that strut assembly for nothing. I suspect your camber bolts just became loose.

If it was just the camber being off, I'd think that there would just be a lot of wear on the inside of the tire - not the cupping that is shown.

I've had a couple if instances with some of the older cars where I've had to use a drill and cold chisel to get the bolt off.

Would the bolts being loose make it wobble though? Cause that would explain the tread... yeah, the strut and mount looked perfectly normal. And I got that breaker bar and prepared to break those nasty bolts..... and they just came right off. I think my lugs were tougher to get off. Maybe they are just loose.... should I just tighten them really well and put my car back together, or is there something else this could be? I think everyone'* sick of my car crap being all over the parking lot

If the lower bolt was loose enough, it could shift the camber settings every time you hit a bump, turned a corner, etc. I have an idea. Take a look at the INSIDE of the strut, where it slips into the knuckle. If there is alot of paint worn off, thats a real good indication that it wasn't tightened down. You may very well even see wear marks if any debris made its way that far, and if there are, they should arc slightly.

I'll ask this question again...how easy (or hard, depending on your point of view) to take the bolts off of the strut/knuckle combo? In particular, the one on the bottom.

Right..Those lower bolts should have been super tight.

I hear easy mac doesn't require a pot. (Inside joke)

The nuts were pretty easy to break loose, getting the screws out was kinda hard... the bottom one was tricky, had to keep jabbing at it with a screw driver

oh and bill, one of the pots DID survive, I'm makin ramen right NOW :P (I need to post a picture of how that looked, it was pretty funny)

If they were pretty easy to break loose....they weren't tight enough. The top one not so much as the bottom one, but still should need a breaker bar to undo.

That bottom bolt is key to keeping the camber set. No matter how tight that top bolt is, if that bottom bolt is loose, it will shift out of position.

Well that'* comforting to know that it will be that simple to fix. Just get it super tight, I guess....? Thanks to everyone who helped me, especially Bill Oh, and here was my solution for my jack not being able to get the car high enough...



by the way I am not in any way condoning the use of ordinary kitchen ware in any type of car repair. for the record. but I'm pretty damn resourceful when there'* no wood blocks around or anything, aren't I. They held up pretty good, only one of them dented slightly :P

And here is my assistant... who thinks it'* cool to run off with people'* lug covers... still haven't figured out where he ended up leaving it.