I thought my build was complete---so after driving it about 100 miles I noticed that the rear tires were showing a bad wear problem ---took it over to the local alignment shop --- after a quick check of the rear toe he calls and tells me that the rear wheels are toed out about 2 inches!!! Then he tells me there is not enough adjustment to correct it----he tells me that when I welded in the box supports the trailing arms warped and that is why I have so much toe out. My question is have any of you run across this problem and what is the best way to correct the problem. I would just get new trailing arms but it took a lot of time and work to fabricate the shock mounts. Any ideas would be appreciated --- as I have said befor ---this build would have taken a lot longer with out the help of you all.

I doubt the arms were bent while boxing them in. It's more likely they were bent before you boxed them but not noticeable to the naked eye. What kind of spring plates are you using? Are they slotted for adjustment? If so, adjust it yourself. Most shops have no idea what they are dealing with when it comes to VW's. There may not be anything wrong with the arms at all.

I had the same problem. The rear toe would barely align before I boxed the arms. Later, after boxing, we found the rear toed out 5/8th\" with all the adjustment we could use. I tried to extend the slots, but then the tire started to rub. I am ready to try another arm. This one took two days to weld. Zap... walk away, do something else for awhile, Zap....etc.

Good luck. Maybe cut your shock mount off and reattach to the new arm.

I'am using the double spring plates that came with the car. They are sloted but not enough to correct the problem---I extended the slots but now the tires rub on the torsion bars. The trailing arms could have been bent before I started like you said---thats the problem with starting out with an old junker you don't know anything about. I should have checked the arms before spending all that time making shock mounts. Thanks for the information.

At this point I had to just walkaway for awhile---I think I will try cutting off the shock mounts and welding them on to new trailing arms. I'am not sure how I will keep the arms from warping when I weld them up. Thanks for the information--- nice to know someone else had the same problem.

What kind of trailing arm bushings are you using? You should have a lot of movement in all directions when not bolted securely to the spring plate. How are you checking your alignment for toe? The weight of the car must be on the suspension not jacked up off the ground. I take the wheels off the car and rest the trailing arms on jack stands so the suspension is loaded. then I take a 3ft piece of angle iron that I bolt to both drums horizontally with the lug bolts. Then take a measurement from the front edge and rear edge of the angle iron. I set our car at zero toe (equal measurement front and rear of the angle). Hopefully you will have enough adjustment to get in the ballpark.

If you plated the arms and just went hog wild with the welder I would bet large money you warped the arms. How do I know this you ask, I did a pair on a 5/1600 a long time ago and warped them so bad I had to throw them away. Hand a pair of untouched arms on there and see what comes up