had an accident: broken LCA at the ball joint, axle damaged, stabilizer link bent, backing plate gouged.
replaced LCA with an ebay replacement, and new axles, straightened link & backing plate, also needs a rotor (warped).
now the camber is off (wheel in at bottom out at top). tried a new strut assy, no change.
i tried to measure between LCAs, and it appears the ebay one is shorter from center of ball joint to front bushing by 3/16" or so. could that be causing the camber problem?

 

Whenever doing suspension work (especially major work like LCA's, axles, struts/springs etc), you must get an alignment. That should solve your issue.

 

intend to, but camber is non-adjustable, no?

 

Wrong. Camber and toe are both adjustable up front.

 

no caster?

 

Double wrong, there is no adjsutment for camber.
from the FSM-

Something is still bent. Replace the steering knuckle. Your chassis could be bent as well.

 

How can you not adjust camber?

 

If nothing is bent, and your not lowered, there is no need to adjust the camber. Nissan never intended for people to lower their Maximas.

 

Even though there might not be a need to, can't it still be adjusted if wanted to?

 

steering knuckle appears undamaged.
anyone have an opinion on the LCA bushings "plane" to ball joint dimension a bit short and causing positive camber?

 

A lil OT but....

I was thinking about purchasing a driver side LCA.

I keep hearing a light thud when i shift into gear and begin to accelerate. Feels like a worn bushing to me, but not exactly sure. I also have a valve cover leak on pass inner tie rod which could be the noise too, im not sure.

The ebay LCAs are super cost effective. How is the quality???

 

Everything is adjustable for the right price

From the factory you can only adjust toe.

For camber, you can get camber bolts (cheap), camber plates (more expensive and rare) or coilovers (more expensive but common)

For caster, you can buy caster bushings (not sure if the ones from the sentra will fit on the maxima, but maybe they do).

And that's it....

 

There is just under a degree of camber adjustment (play) in the bolt holes on the lower strut flange. To get more adjustment you will need to do one of two things.
1) Buy a set of camber bolts.
2) Make the top holes in the strut flange a bit wider (oval).

It's all very easy to do.

To the OP - The answer to your question is YES. It sounds like the control arm you got from Ebay isn't manufactured correctly. If it's shorter it will be positioning the wheel more inward at the bottom causing an increase in positive camber. I would suggest you return or exchange that arm for a correct unit.

 

pretty decent, other than the dimension being off (a biggie though)

 

thanks for the info. thought about slightly slotting the top strut holes.
got a line on another LCA, but dont want to get another dud.