Why is my rear offset to the driver's side (A-body)

[derekf]

69 El Camino.

I have realized that the tire-to-fender-lip dimension was much larger on the pass side than the driver's - ~3" vs 1 1/2"-ish. Initial thought was that I'd gotten the body misaligned to the frame so with a bunch of pushing and prying and the use of one of those hydraulic thingies they sell at Harbor Fright I was able to get the tire-to-lip dimension to 2" on the driver's... but the frame mounts don't line up so well underneath now so I'm probably doing bad things there.

Then I realized that the wheel-to-frame dimension also differed between the side: about 1" on the pass side, about 2 1/2 on the drivers -- so the axle itself is offset.

It's the original axle. Lowers are tubular BMRs, so unlikely they're bent; uppers are adjustable but I can't fathom how they'd be able to move the axle over.

I have NOT swapped the wheels between the sides to see if I somehow got mismatched offsets (they're Soft 8s which only come in a single offset so probably not).

Is this "normal" for the 69 A-bodies? Do I just need to (ugh) put a spacer on the pass side and call it good?

[dhutton]

Uppers will move the axle over. Adjust them to center it. One gets longer, the other shorter.

Don

[derekf]

That's got it, thanks Don.

I would have expected the lower links wouldn't allow the side loads but shows how wrong I was.

[Hotwire]

Yessir, Don is correct. The uppers adjust pinion angle and offset of the axle. If your pinion angle is good, you need to lengthen pass side while shortening driver's at the same time. This will move the axle but keep pinion angle the same. Try turning one in and the other out 1/2 turn to see what it nets you. I'd keep the axle on jackstands so the weight of the car stays on the suspension. The upper arms have little to no pressure on them so it's easy to do, just a pain to get in there with tools. I've got a set of Speedway Motors uppers and only thing I have big enough to get the nut is a comically large adjustable wrench, have to really plan ingress/egress with it otherwise I end up with a full cuss jar.

[derekf]

And confirmed that it fixed the issue -- as an after-action report, I suspect what happened is back when I was putting these in, I knew that I could adjust the axle laterally. I know I was under there tweaking <something> with the UCA length, when the wrench slipped and popped me in the eye. Gave me a nice shiner for a few days, and I'd never gotten back under there to finish whatever I was doing.

[Interceptor5588]

How is your alignment after this? With all 4 control arms adjustable you now have the opportunity to make it dogtrack.