I’m stumped, maybe someone can help I have seen some pretty slick answers on this site. I have a 1997 850. 280,000 miles. I have had this car since 140,000. I had one previously that went 320,000 before burning a valve. Not to brag but my first Volvo was a 240 wagon that I got at 40,000 and drove to 505,000.....as any of you know you have to carry them part of the way to make them go that far!

I have a problem with steering mis alignment and a clunk in the front end of my 850. I recently replaced the strut towers, inner, outer and lower ball joints and torsion bar links. I had a front end alignment. Note I have camber bolts on this car as well. I noticed that I had a clunk on the RH side when I turned corners sometimes. I scratched the head a bit and looked at the car and noticed the spring was not sitting in the spring mount [on the bottom end of the spring] correctly. It was rotated about 1 inch out of place. I took it out re seated the spring and the clunk on that side went away. I noticed a smaller clunk on the LH side so I took out the strut assuming the same problem. It was not like the other one. I did clean the seat and make sure it was re-set really good and put it together. I drove the car the next day and the alignment was clearly off. It shouldn’t have been as I didn’t do anything to the toe but it obviously was. Took it in and it was really off. I got it back and the alignment was absolutely perfect. I have never had the steering wheel so well aligned; the car was always off a little in the past. This lasted a week until one day I was backing up and turning hard and I heard a really loud clunk/sproing!!! noise. [No I didn’t mis spell that is what it sounded like.] I noticed immediately that the steering wheel was now canted 10 or 15 degrees when driving straight. It did this 3 more times [I was out garage sailing] one of which the steering went back straight. Unfortunately not the last time! I put the car up on jack stands and looked under the car at everything really carefully....nothing loose, not even the steering rack. Any Ideas!???

 

Well....no answers....fortunately I figured it out myself! I travel for a living...as you can imagine based on my mileage. This gives me a lot of time to cogitate on solutions to car problems. I figured this one out. The problem is the camber bolt allowing the camber adjustment to move when put under load. The weight of the car tends to cause the wheel to lean inwards and this changes the toe, this causes the steering wheel to be off center. I took the wheel off and adjusted it where I thought it should be and drove the car and found that the steering wheel was then centered perfectly. I had thought this might be a problem in the past so I had really tightened this bolt up in the past...apparently on my car you cannot get this tightened enough. In order to stop this from happening again I slipped a 1" X 4" piece of steel plate between the strut and the hub casting behind where the camber bolt goes through. I have several different sized pieces so I went through them til I found the right sized one.

 

Wow! I think the manual recommends that those bolts be new each time they are removed.

 

You gotta love figureing these things out yourself! Good job!!!

 

Kind of hard to do with camber bolts which are made to be adjusted. I dont know that volvo even makes a camber bolt. The manufacturing process makes the bold weaker than a standard bolt as material is taken off them so there is some adjustment. This makes them weaker and I was always worried about tourquing them too tight lest they break. I did have these nice and tight but to no avail. As cheap as after market struts are [about $75.00 each] I think it might just be easier to replace the struts when you get a camber problem. It sure as heck isnt worth the pain in tha behind i have had with this thing clunking all these years. I will in the future shim any camber adjustment just for good measure, then it cant get knocked out. I am glad i got a 5 year alignment warranty at Tire Kingdom here in NC. for $200.00 they will align the car as many times as you want for a 5 year period...what a deal! Of course they try to shake you down for some sort of repair every time you go in.....just dont send the wife to get it done so she doesnt fall prey to the old..."your serpantine belt is a little frayed and this could cause an accident and your kids could die" routine! I trained my wife to say..."Oh thankyou...I will tell my mechanic"