Interesting solution to an alignment problem

[Steve W.]

1989 Mazda 626. I replaced the lower control arm on the pass side in
December, and while it resolved the ball joint issue, the steering wheel
was cocked to the passenger's side and pulling to the right.

My computer decided to blow it's brains out last night, and I was up until
3:30AM putting the old one back in service and reloading Linux YET AGAIN,
so when I got up at 10 I figured, I'm gonna PAY someone this time and
relax, and get it lined up all at once. Every shop I went to..."If you had
come last week..."

It got up to 64 degrees in Massachusetts (they said t was going to be 46,
so I had planned to do it today anyway, and 65 was just a bonus...) so I
pulled into the yard, got the jack, stands and tools out and went at it.
Wasn't as easy as the other one, and, see later for an aside question.
The only thing I couldn't get out was the sway bar link from the old
control arm, and AutoZone went from $4.99 to $18!!! But, it's all
together, and...the wheel is STRAIGHT and the pulling is GONE! All I did
was just put it back in where the other one was, and it drives straight
down the road, no pulling, no nothing, just nice and smooth. I figured
this might happen, but I was betting more on having the alignment go WAY
out.


BTW, there was something on the driver's side not on the passenger's side:
a "Black Box" I had to remove to get the rear bolts out. It had no
connections on it, just bolted to the frame, and appears to be a big
magnet. It attracted my tools when I set it down.

The car does not have ABS or 4 wheel steering (some did). Any ideas?

Sounds like a light trip magnet. Used on vehicles that don't have enough
steel to reliably trip traffic lights and other magnetic switch items.

I have them on my motorcycles so you don't need to wait for the timer.

 

[dsi1]

1989 Mazda 626. I replaced the lower control arm on the pass side in
December, and while it resolved the ball joint issue, the steering wheel
was cocked to the passenger's side and pulling to the right.

My computer decided to blow it's brains out last night, and I was up until
3:30AM putting the old one back in service and reloading Linux YET AGAIN,
so when I got up at 10 I figured, I'm gonna PAY someone this time and
relax, and get it lined up all at once. Every shop I went to..."If you had
come last week..."

It got up to 64 degrees in Massachusetts (they said t was going to be 46,
so I had planned to do it today anyway, and 65 was just a bonus...) so I
pulled into the yard, got the jack, stands and tools out and went at it.
Wasn't as easy as the other one, and, see later for an aside question.
The only thing I couldn't get out was the sway bar link from the old
control arm, and AutoZone went from $4.99 to $18!!! But, it's all
together, and...the wheel is STRAIGHT and the pulling is GONE! All I did
was just put it back in where the other one was, and it drives straight
down the road, no pulling, no nothing, just nice and smooth. I figured
this might happen, but I was betting more on having the alignment go WAY
out.


BTW, there was something on the driver's side not on the passenger's side:
a "Black Box" I had to remove to get the rear bolts out. It had no
connections on it, just bolted to the frame, and appears to be a big
magnet. It attracted my tools when I set it down.

The car does not have ABS or 4 wheel steering (some did). Any ideas?

Interesting mysterious magnet. Could there be a sensor nearby that it
could move next to and trip/activate? Perhaps it's supposed to trigger
an anti-tank mine. My guess is that it's a good idea to remove it.

I used to have a Taurus that had a small red light with something that
looked like a jack that you plugged into near the bottom of the dash.
The light stayed on for 7 years and I never did figure out what the heck
it was.

 

[Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B]

1989 Mazda 626. I replaced the lower control arm on the pass side in
December, and while it resolved the ball joint issue, the steering wheel
was cocked to the passenger's side and pulling to the right.

My computer decided to blow it's brains out last night, and I was up until
3:30AM putting the old one back in service and reloading Linux YET AGAIN,
so when I got up at 10 I figured, I'm gonna PAY someone this time and
relax, and get it lined up all at once. Every shop I went to..."If you had
come last week..."

It got up to 64 degrees in Massachusetts (they said t was going to be 46,
so I had planned to do it today anyway, and 65 was just a bonus...) so I
pulled into the yard, got the jack, stands and tools out and went at it.
Wasn't as easy as the other one, and, see later for an aside question.
The only thing I couldn't get out was the sway bar link from the old
control arm, and AutoZone went from $4.99 to $18!!! But, it's all
together, and...the wheel is STRAIGHT and the pulling is GONE! All I did
was just put it back in where the other one was, and it drives straight
down the road, no pulling, no nothing, just nice and smooth. I figured
this might happen, but I was betting more on having the alignment go WAY
out.


BTW, there was something on the driver's side not on the passenger's side:
a "Black Box" I had to remove to get the rear bolts out. It had no
connections on it, just bolted to the frame, and appears to be a big
magnet. It attracted my tools when I set it down.

The car does not have ABS or 4 wheel steering (some did). Any ideas?

 

[Tegger]

=?iso-2022-jp?q?Hachiroku_=1B$B%O%A%m%=2F=1B=28B?= <(e-mail address removed)>
wrote in

My computer decided to blow it's brains out last night, and I was up
until 3:30AM putting the old one back in service and reloading Linux
YET AGAIN,

I thought Linux was supposed to be more stable than a Swiss government.

 

[Scott Dorsey]

I thought Linux was supposed to be more stable than a Swiss government.

It is. And if the computer itself dies, the easy solution is to
transplant the hard drive into a new computer and keep going. So I
am a little curious what Hachiroku is doing...
--scott

 

[JoeSpareBedroom]

=?iso-2022-jp?q?Hachiroku_=1B$B%O%A%m%=2F=1B=28B?= <(e-mail address removed)>
wrote in




I thought Linux was supposed to be more stable than a Swiss government.

It is, unless the computer is owned by an idiot, who also happens to be a
Dell service tech who lives with his mother.

 

[Reed]

SNIP

I used to have a Taurus that had a small red light with something that
looked like a jack that you plugged into near the bottom of the dash.
The light stayed on for 7 years and I never did figure out what the
heck it was.

That probably was an anti-theft device. I had one on a '94 Olds. If
you pulled the coded plug out, the ignition system is disabled. Car
won't start even with key, or another "wrong" plug, or any attempt at
hot-wiring. Red light meant you had correct plug for that car.

--

 

[Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B]

in





I thought Linux was supposed to be more stable than a Swiss government.

It wasn't Linux, I am going to refrain from the name of the @#$%^&
motherboard manufacturer until I see what their offer to fix it is.

I bought one back in July of last year from a "computer show", a Factory
Refurbished board. I needed another video card and more ram, so it wasn't
until almost Thansgiving that I got it built. Ran real nice! For about 35
hours. Then...poof...

"Your board was made for sale in Taiwan and there is no US warranty
support available.

Now, the caveat is that the board it was replacing had an Intel SATA
controller, and this had an nVidia controller. So I loaded up from
scratch. When it went bonkers, I had to load from scratch again. Then, the
seller offered me a 'new' board at not much of a discount, so I bought it
(it was under $50...these are older 775 Pentium D boards). I built it
around New Year's and did a 4 day burn in on it, since the seller
generously dropped his warranty from 90 days to 14...including shipping
time (3 days). After running it for 4 days, 16 hours a day, I decided it
was probably OK, and set it up. Again, having to reload Linux from scratch.

Last night, Win7 wouldn't load, and I figured it might be because I had a
3.4G Pentium running at 3.95G. I dropped the clocks back to stock
and...nothing. No beeps, no nothing. Since I need a computer for work I
fired up the old mobo, copied my backed up INIT files back into the boot
directory and...nothing. Reload from scratch again.

BTW, Windows XP was able to deal with it. Windows 2000 couldn't, and
Windows 7 couldn't. But I had to re-up my 'genuine Windows' to get it
activated.

Before this I swapped an AMD Athlon board for the board that's running now
and had no problems. It's only when you introduce the nVidia SATA drivers
you have an issue.

 

[Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B]

It is. And if the computer itself dies, the easy solution is to
transplant the hard drive into a new computer and keep going. So I am a
little curious what Hachiroku is doing... --scott

See my answer to Teg...it was the nVidia SATA drivers messing the works up.

 

[N8N]

It is.  And if the computer itself dies, the easy solution is to
transplant the hard drive into a new computer and keep going.  So I
am a little curious what Hachiroku is doing...

I've found two shortcomings with Linux over the years...

1) if your power quality sucks (to the point where you have several
short outages every day) and you don't have a UPS, eventually things
will become corrupt to the point where it won't boot.

2) I haven't had any luck with ANY proprietary video drivers with
Linux - I've used both Intel and ATI and while ATI is *better,* it's
still not perfect. Both my boxen have ATI video right now,
thankfully. Intel on Ubuntu 10.04 is not pretty.

nate

 

[FatterDumber& Happier Moe]

1989 Mazda 626. I replaced the lower control arm on the pass side in
December, and while it resolved the ball joint issue, the steering wheel
was cocked to the passenger's side and pulling to the right.

My computer decided to blow it's brains out last night, and I was up until
3:30AM putting the old one back in service and reloading Linux YET AGAIN,
so when I got up at 10 I figured, I'm gonna PAY someone this time and
relax, and get it lined up all at once. Every shop I went to..."If you had
come last week..."

It got up to 64 degrees in Massachusetts (they said t was going to be 46,
so I had planned to do it today anyway, and 65 was just a bonus...) so I
pulled into the yard, got the jack, stands and tools out and went at it.
Wasn't as easy as the other one, and, see later for an aside question.
The only thing I couldn't get out was the sway bar link from the old
control arm, and AutoZone went from $4.99 to $18!!! But, it's all
together, and...the wheel is STRAIGHT and the pulling is GONE! All I did
was just put it back in where the other one was, and it drives straight
down the road, no pulling, no nothing, just nice and smooth. I figured
this might happen, but I was betting more on having the alignment go WAY
out.


BTW, there was something on the driver's side not on the passenger's side:
a "Black Box" I had to remove to get the rear bolts out. It had no
connections on it, just bolted to the frame, and appears to be a big
magnet. It attracted my tools when I set it down.

The car does not have ABS or 4 wheel steering (some did). Any ideas?

A TRACKING DEVICE !!!!!!!!
http://www.google.com/images?q=trac...&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1169&bih=572

 

[Ashton Crusher]

1989 Mazda 626. I replaced the lower control arm on the pass side in
December, and while it resolved the ball joint issue, the steering wheel
was cocked to the passenger's side and pulling to the right.

My computer decided to blow it's brains out last night, and I was up until
3:30AM putting the old one back in service and reloading Linux YET AGAIN,
so when I got up at 10 I figured, I'm gonna PAY someone this time and
relax, and get it lined up all at once. Every shop I went to..."If you had
come last week..."

It got up to 64 degrees in Massachusetts (they said t was going to be 46,
so I had planned to do it today anyway, and 65 was just a bonus...) so I
pulled into the yard, got the jack, stands and tools out and went at it.
Wasn't as easy as the other one, and, see later for an aside question.
The only thing I couldn't get out was the sway bar link from the old
control arm, and AutoZone went from $4.99 to $18!!! But, it's all
together, and...the wheel is STRAIGHT and the pulling is GONE! All I did
was just put it back in where the other one was, and it drives straight
down the road, no pulling, no nothing, just nice and smooth. I figured
this might happen, but I was betting more on having the alignment go WAY
out.

I rebuilt the entire front end on my old Pontiac, all new bushings,
ball joints, tie rods. I lined everything up by eye and when I took
it in for alignment all they had to adjust was the toe. I did the toe
with a tape measure but it was still off quite a bit. You should at
least have your alignment checked, if the toe is off very much it can
drive ok but will wear the tires out fairly fast.

 

[1 Lucky Texan]

I rebuilt the entire front end on my old Pontiac, all new bushings,
ball joints, tie rods.  I lined everything up by eye and when I took
it in for alignment all they had to adjust was the toe.  I did the toe
with a tape measure but it was still off quite a bit.  You should at
least have your alignment checked, if the toe is off very much it can
drive ok but will wear the tires out fairly fast.

You find decent instructions online for DIY alignment.

 

[Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B]

I rebuilt the entire front end on my old Pontiac, all new bushings, ball
joints, tie rods. I lined everything up by eye and when I took it in for
alignment all they had to adjust was the toe. I did the toe with a tape
measure but it was still off quite a bit. You should at least have your
alignment checked, if the toe is off very much it can drive ok but will
wear the tires out fairly fast.

That's what I was thinking today. The old snow tires, after 2.5 years,
would have made nice slicks...

 

[Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B]

I've found two shortcomings with Linux over the years...

1) if your power quality sucks (to the point where you have several short
outages every day) and you don't have a UPS, eventually things will become
corrupt to the point where it won't boot.

2) I haven't had any luck with ANY proprietary video drivers with Linux -
I've used both Intel and ATI and while ATI is *better,* it's still not
perfect. Both my boxen have ATI video right now, thankfully. Intel on
Ubuntu 10.04 is not pretty.

nate

You need to get an nVidia card. I was having a BIOTCH of a problem with
ATi cards, no accelerated graphics, couldn't adjust the screen size, etc.
I spent about 3 weeks trying different things (back in 2007, 8 and 9)
trying to get the darnm thing to work! I finally discovered that, at that
time, loading driver version 2.7, uninstalling, and then loading v2.3
worked quite well.

I bought a used nVidia card from the guitar player in the band, got my
flame-proof suit and prepared to do the usual battle after changing a
piece of hardware, took the ATi card out and plugged in the nVidia,
pressed the power button and...Ubuntu came up with a big screen that said
nVidia, got into the desktop and a box popped up saying "There are
proprietary drivers available for your hardware. I clicked "downlaod and
install" and that was it! Even with the wonky monitor I had, I had the
screen size and refresh adjusted in 5 minutes. I was also running a drive
with PCLOS, and it did the same thing, except I had to install the driver
manually ("manually" means opening Synaptic, searching "nVidia" and
clicking "apply".)

Even Windows had a better time with the nVidia card than the ATi. I used
to love ATi, but their driver support is not up to the task.


Intel is marginally better than ATi, but 'acceleration' seems to mean
something else to them...

 

[Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B]

It is, unless the computer is owned by an idiot, who also happens to be a
Dell service tech who lives with his mother.

The Big Boys are talking about things here, and don't have the time to
explain it to you now.

 

[Ray O]

1989 Mazda 626. I replaced the lower control arm on the pass side in
December, and while it resolved the ball joint issue, the steering wheel
was cocked to the passenger's side and pulling to the right.

My computer decided to blow it's brains out last night, and I was up until
3:30AM putting the old one back in service and reloading Linux YET AGAIN,
so when I got up at 10 I figured, I'm gonna PAY someone this time and
relax, and get it lined up all at once. Every shop I went to..."If you had
come last week..."

It got up to 64 degrees in Massachusetts (they said t was going to be 46,
so I had planned to do it today anyway, and 65 was just a bonus...) so I
pulled into the yard, got the jack, stands and tools out and went at it.
Wasn't as easy as the other one, and, see later for an aside question.
The only thing I couldn't get out was the sway bar link from the old
control arm, and AutoZone went from $4.99 to $18!!! But, it's all
together, and...the wheel is STRAIGHT and the pulling is GONE! All I did
was just put it back in where the other one was, and it drives straight
down the road, no pulling, no nothing, just nice and smooth. I figured
this might happen, but I was betting more on having the alignment go WAY
out.


BTW, there was something on the driver's side not on the passenger's side:
a "Black Box" I had to remove to get the rear bolts out. It had no
connections on it, just bolted to the frame, and appears to be a big
magnet. It attracted my tools when I set it down.

The car does not have ABS or 4 wheel steering (some did). Any ideas?

If there is a wired device located near the magnetic box with a bright
yellow wire loom, it could be part of the supplemental restraint system.
Under normal conditions, the magnet holds a switch in the open position, but
in a crash, inertia overcomes the magnet's pull, the switch closes, the same
thing happens to another switch, and when 2 switches close, the air bags
deploy.

BTW, Toyota does not use magnets in its SRS.

 

[Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B]

If there is a wired device located near the magnetic box with a bright
yellow wire loom, it could be part of the supplemental restraint system.
Under normal conditions, the magnet holds a switch in the open position,
but in a crash, inertia overcomes the magnet's pull, the switch closes,
the same thing happens to another switch, and when 2 switches close, the
air bags deploy.

BTW, Toyota does not use magnets in its SRS.

It has the early-mid 90's automatic seat belt like in the Camry's. The
belt rides on a track and moves into place when the door closes with the
ignition on.

 

[Ray O]

It has the early-mid 90's automatic seat belt like in the Camry's. The
belt rides on a track and moves into place when the door closes with the
ignition on.

OK, it's not for the SRS. I have no idea what it's for.

 

[1 Lucky Texan]

1989 Mazda 626. I replaced the lower control arm on the pass side in
December, and while it resolved the ball joint issue, the steering wheel
was cocked to the passenger's side and pulling to the right.

My computer decided to blow it's brains out last night, and I was up until
3:30AM putting the old one back in service and reloading Linux YET AGAIN,
so when I got up at 10 I figured, I'm gonna PAY someone this time and
relax, and get it lined up all at once. Every shop I went to..."If you had
come last week..."

It got up to 64 degrees in Massachusetts (they said t was going to be 46,
so I had planned to do it today anyway, and 65 was just a bonus...) so I
pulled into the yard, got the jack, stands and tools out and went at it.
Wasn't as easy as the other one, and, see later for an aside question.
The only thing I couldn't get out was the sway bar link from the old
control arm, and AutoZone went from $4.99 to $18!!! But, it's all
together, and...the wheel is STRAIGHT and the pulling is GONE! All I did
was just put it back in where the other one was, and it drives straight
down the road, no pulling, no nothing, just nice and smooth. I figured
this might happen, but I was betting more on having the alignment go WAY
out.

BTW, there was something on the driver's side not on the passenger's side:
a "Black Box" I had to remove to get the rear bolts out. It had no
connections on it, just bolted to the frame, and appears to be a big
magnet. It attracted my tools when I set it down.

The car does not have ABS or 4 wheel steering (some did). Any ideas?

That box with the magnet is likely for a key to hide on the vehicle
somewhere.

I used the same thing on each of my daughter's first cars. came in
handy 3-4 times.