05 GT woes

[tarafied1]

So I have been heavily ocupied with a major kitchen renovation. I have a buddy who is an electrician. He has helped me tremendously on all the work needed after tearing out a wall and ceailing, moving the 220 for the stove and two 110v feeders, etc, etc. Even had a compound miter saw I borrowed for the trim. Well anyway, since he helped me so much, his son has a 05 GT. He bought it used ans neither of them are mechanically inclined. So they asked me to look at some of it's problems.
It has nice billit Steeda LCAs and relocation kit. Big anti-sway bars, huge rims, etc. They just had the clutch replaced. Shortly after and I mean on the way home, the OEM driveshaft carrier bearing or CV actually, blew up and it dropped the driveshaft. So they bought a $800 1 pc aluminum shaft and a safety loop. I help them put it on. After the installation I took it for a drive and it has horrible harmonic vibration/noise. So I got to looking the car over, the pinion angle "looked" way off. I looked at the car sitting on the ground. The rear wheels are way too far back in the wheel wells. So I got to looking at the suspenion mods. The Steeda LCA's look great but the relocation kit that lowers the mounting point of the LCA is at an angle. This appears to be forcing the bottom of the axle to be pushed rearward. Also cause a huge negative pinion angle. I think this may be the cause of there problems. They say it has had vibration issues since they bought it. they thought it was the big wheels (still could be part of it), but the noise I hear is not the wheels.

 

[tarafied1]

I called Steeda and the had an online chat with them. They agreed it looked wrong. Instructions say to attach the brackets while maintaining wheelbase and squareness and should be done on an alignment rack. They sent me a copy of the installation intructions and some pics of the parts installed. Good service.

 

[tarafied1]

here is a better view of much these are at an angle...

 

[tarafied1]

this is the 1 pc DS and saftey loop we installed Saturday

 

[stangg]

It looks to me like the relocation brackets are on the wrong sides. In the second picture, it looks like the relocation bracket has a 90 degree tab bent into it that appears to lock the bracket in. Now look at the rear end bracket, there is a slot on the left side that looks like that tab would fit within. Given that it is higher than where the tab is now, that would push the bracket rearward, hence move the axle forward. I'm assuming the brackets are symmetrical so swapping them might just do the trick.

 

[tarafied1]

excellent observation! I think you are right.
Unfortunately they are welded on. They will need to be cut off and rewelded.

 

[tarafied1]

I never updated this.
We had some fun figuring out all the issues from the PO.
I moved the lower control arms back to the stock location. That caused the drive shaft to rub on the floor. This led me to believe that is why the PO put the brackets on the way they did. They titled the axle to prevent the drive shaft from rubbing. In the process the drive angle did a number on the rear end. So I rebuilt the rear and installed lower gears. 3.73 and a new traction lock diff. We adjusted the upper control arm ( fortunately it was adjustable) and raised the rear of the car a little. This fixed all of the noise, vibration and so on.
He is quite happy with the car and is planning to join us on the Hot Rod Power Tour with it tjis June.


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