Alignment Off, Tie Rod End At Maximum Adjustment

My mother in law has a '99 Honda Civic.  A couple of years ago I replaced one outer tie rod end.  I knew the alignment was a bit off afterwards, but she drives very seldom so it was left alone.  Both at the time of replacement and currently, the straight ahead steering position causes the wheel to be turned a fair bit.  ie. the car drives straight at 2-oclock.  It pulls a bit if you let go of the wheel, but not a crazy amount, I've driven cars with more severe pull.  Today it was taken in for an alignment.  Apparently the one wheel has toe of something crazy like 11 degrees.  The person at this 1-man shop indicated the car could not be aligned because the tie rod end was at the already at the maximum level adjustment.  I looked at it with him and he's right, it cannot be screwed in any further.  My (poor) recollection from the time of replacement was that the tie rod end was not at the maximum adjustment.  I certainly cannot rule out poor workmanship on my part, but I honestly can't think of how I could have caused this problem.

I would be grateful for any and all ideas as to the cause of this problem.

Something bent?

^ I don't think so...  The wheel is toed out and can't be brought in any further.

Adjust the other side?

Steering rack shifted somehow?  Steering wheel not centered to the rack or something weird? 

You need to look over under the car and see if anything is bent.  That much toe out would be caused by something very obvious but since the shop didn't say that's the problem you need to look again yourself.

I suggest that you set the car up so that the one good wheel is pointed straight ahead. Now turn the wheel to the left  all the way and than  back to center,  now to the right. Count the number of turns it takes to accomplish both operations. My guess is that the number won't be the same.  What you may need to do is toe the good wheel in but until you get the results I can't say for sure 

Occasionally i get incorrect parts. I know some other models of civic/integra have longer or shorter tie rods. 

Is the other sight tight? Might see if you can put slack on other then recenter steering wheel afterward.

simple question, was the steering wheel in the correct position when he was aligning it . and also compensate from the other side.

also too much + camber can move the spindle Steering arm Away from center making tie rod seem Short

I have had to deal with this kind of thing in the past when doing alignments. Unless there is obvious damage to the car or a possible loose subframe your car needs what I call a “do over” alignment.

Basicly you are starting over. Completely disconnect the tie rods from the spindles. Center the RACK not the wheel. Then look to see if the wheel is strait. If it is out by more that say 10 or 15 degrees lock the rack at the center and adjust the wheel to be as close as possible. This can sometimes be done at the wheel but more often than not I do it where the column connects to the rack. This is easier than dealing with airbags and stuff.  Once that is done set the wheels to the correct alignment and then adjust the disconnected tie rod ends to go back in to the spindles. 99.9 percent of the time this fixes the problem. My assumption as to how this happens is that someone in the past replaced front end parts and assumed that the wheel was centered to the rack and made the corrections  with the tie rod ends when in fact the rack was not centered. 

The only other way I can see this happening is if a alignment was being done and it was done with the wheel 180 out and corrected it by adjusting the wheel or where the shaft attaches to the rack. 

Oh and if the place that you went to had a fixed price for an alignment I don’t blame them for bailing. It will take some time to sort it out and is way beyond the scope of a normal alignment. What they were really saying was sort out and reset your steering and then come and get an alignment. 

The shop definitely wanted to do a "toe 'n' go" alignment. I agree with the idea of resetting everything to center. When I did a bunch of front end work on my Fairmont (up to and including changing the K-member), everything was all sorts of wonky. The inside of the wheel would scrape the lower control arm on the left side, but not the right. I had to find the center of the rack travel and make sure the rack was centered in the car before I set the toe. Not that it would ever be noticed on some cars, but the rack not being in the center of its travel could cause some interesting bumpsteer issues. 

Wrong part?  Measure the length and compare to the one on the other side.

In reply to Snrub :

You say toe-out and that the tie rod is screwed all the way in. The Civic has a firewall mounted rack and steers from behind the axle. Threading the rod in would increase toe-out whereas unthreading it would increase toe-in.

Is it possible the alignment guy is just thinking backwards and should unthread the tie rod?  

Unless I’m thinking backwards. 

Thanks guys, I'll give these ideas a try and report back in a few days or so.

I'm now really wondering if it is the wrong part, I'll measure to confirm.  I didn't notice anything bent, but I'll do a careful re-examination.  I'll do the wheel turn test.  If everything seems okay I'll try to do the reset alignment the best I can and then take it to another shop.  It was a fixed price alignment (and inexpensive), but they didn't end up charging.  As I suggested, it's entirely possible I messed stuff up, but the one wheel wasn't touched and is good-ish.

I'm pretty sure that threading out the tie rod end increases toe out.

I don't know, man. I think Carson has it right. Threading the tie rod in on a Civic would increase toe out, and threading it out would increase toe in. Your alignment guy must have gotten mixed up. The tie rod end goes to the rear of the knuckle so if it gets longer the tires toe in more.

^ Thinking about it more, this does make sense.  Additionally, I may have misunderstood and thought he was suggesting toe out, when it is toed in.

Final update on this: I worked on the car again a few weeks ago and solved the issue. Thank you for all of your help.

1. I did the "reset alignment." I suspect what happened the first time is that I unintentionally pulled on the tie rod when I was screwing on the one end. It takes very little force to do this and the tie rod on the other side does not move in tandem in this situation. They only move in tandem when the steering wheel is turned. When I screw things on I tend to apply a bit of pressure. The second time I was very careful to only turn the tie rod and not pull as it was spinning.

2. The tie rod looked like it could not thread inwards any further. On closer inspection I realized it was simply covered in road grim in a misleading way and there were additional threads. I cleaned them off with a wire wheel and was able to screw the rod in a bit more. I eyeballed the alignment to get it "close enough" so that a shop would be willing to align it.

3. We had a more reputable shop preform the alignment. It was almost double the cost, but it was the going market rate.

Snrub said:

 

 I suspect what happened the first time is that I unintentionally pulled on the tie rod when I was screwing on the one end. It takes very little force to do this and the tie rod on the other side does not move in tandem in this situation. They only move in tandem when the steering wheel is turned.

You lost me here. Can you explain what you mean? Thanks

^ Sorry I'll try to be more clear. When a steering wheel is turned one tie rod pulls in, the other pushes out. However, when I yanked on one tie rod when attaching the tie rod end, it didn't appear to move the tie rod/wheel on the other side. I might have moved it 1/4". I know that normally when you move a wheel/tie rod, you get an equal and opposite reaction on the other side. I'm not sure if there was some play in the system. I hope this makes more sense.

In reply to Snrub :

If that is the case you have something way wrong with your car. If this were correct every time you hit a bump it would knock car out of alignment. If you have 1/4' inch of play anywhere in steering it is at "about to fall apart" stage. Moving one tie rod end should most definitely move the other no matter what the circumstances.

Yes I suppose your right, the tie rods must be moving in sync. I only jacked up the one corner at a time, but the other tire would have been partially touching the epoxy coated garage floor. I don't *really* know what I messed up the first time, I am only guessing.