Upper strut mount

[russde]

Doing a little prev. maint. on my SVO today and saw something interesting.

The drinver side upper strut mount has small holes drilled (machined?) into it, they are marked with numbers and one of them has a rivet.
The pasenger side has the same holes but no rivet. Is there supposed to be one? I can look through one of the holes and see through a coresponding hole in the body.

Thanks for any info,
Russ
San Antonio
'86 9L

[SVOeric]

yea.. there should be a rivit in that hole somewhere... it helps hold the alignment...

[SVOPaul]

The rivet is not absolutely necessary but was there from the factory to help keep the setting while the bolts were tightened. Sometimes when getting an alignment the hole does not line up perfectly so nothing is put back in and rarely if ever will you see a technician put a rivet back in. Some people insert a cotter pin...it is basically to hold the setting while everything is tightened. Once the strut mount is tightened, the setting should not move.

[Speeder]

Hey, you're missing one of the easiest, cheapest and most effective high performance handling tweaks you can do: negative camber. It helps keep the outside footprint when the car is tossed hard toward that side. Drill out the rivet and slide the strut mount over to get as much negative camber as possible.

If you're going to put it on the track, consider slotting the hole (upper? can't remember) on the strut to shift the spindle. More than 2 degrees overall negative camber is overdoing it. Even at 1 degree the car will dart around a bit on rough roads but on the track? Look out, you will notice an immense improvement.