I've been working through installing new urethane bushings on my 240z and noticed something odd that I'm looking for some help on repairing. It seems that my drivers side front control arm bushing was placed in a bind by the tension rod. It looks to have been pulling the control arm back a bit. At first I thought maybe it was just an issue with an old rubber bushing, but after installing the new one and then the tension rod it is still pulling it back. It looks like some previous rust repair may have moved the mount or allowed it to move. I've measured the distance from the top of the front cross-member to the top of the tension rod mount and those match on both sides. What I'm looking for is what else could be off that I could measure? I'm am experienced in rust repair on vehicles and have no issue fixing this, but want to make sure I do it right since I've yet to mess with suspension mounting locations.

Thanks

Could it be that the control arm is bent? Or perhaps the crossmember? When checking these things always look at the diagonal measurements then cross check with the other side. I've seen a lot fo these cars where they took a side impact to the front end at some point placing the front at a bit fo an angle. Short of putting it on a chassis rack the work around is to use adjustable lca and tc rod for TTT or silvermine or similar.

I will take a look at the control arm, but I don't recall it visually looking bent. I'll take a look at the measurements as well. Is something like the chassis measurements image I see in a google search that appears to be from the FSM a good start?

If they car has took an impact to the front at sometime in the past. Whoever repaired it did a hell of a job since there doesn't appear to be any damage.

Do you think it is possible that this area weakened due to rust in the frame and a bump caused the mounting location to move?

Found the issue today when doing some measuring. The frame rail on that side is tweaked right where the tension rod mount is, its pushed in about 1/4 inch on the bottom half. My thoughts are I can either replace the frame rail with ones from Zedd Findings, call a frame shop, or get adjustable tension rods. I'm thinking that the cheapest and easiest option is the adjustable tension rods. Since nothing else except where the mount is, measured the same across both sides. The damage looks limited to a 4 to 6 inch portion of the rail.

HAVING DONE FRAME AND WHEEL ALIGNMENT WORK PREVIOUSLY, I WOULD GET THE CAR CHECKED ON A FRAME MACHINE FIRST. MOST SHOPS LIKE GOODYEAR AND FIRESTONE STORES ARE NOT TRAINED IN FRAME
WORK. A GOOD BODY SHOP WHO DOES FRAME WORK WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE IF FRAME WORK IS NECESSARY OR NOT.
INSTALLING BIG DOG FRAME REPLACEMENTS MAY NOT SOLVE THE DAMAGE UNTIL THE REST OF THE BODY
IS CHECKED BY A FRAME MACHINE. ON A UNITIZED BODY VEHICLE, THE BODY IS THE FRAME.

Just depends on how correct you want the fix. For proper restoration replace the rail on a frame rack, second best is to pull it on a frame jig, cheap easy driver just use the adjustable parts. Your car, your wallet.

The car surprisingly drove just like any other car before I went about replacing the bushing. Considering I've owned the car for five years and it took me this long to notice I would expect that the damage is not extensive. My plan is a multi-step one, first I"m going to get the control arm bushing out of the bind and get an alignment so I can get the car back on the road as my weekend cruiser. Then I'm going to go to a frame repair shop to see how bad the damage is before I decide on what to do next. I do have plans to replace the stock frame rails with new ones from bad dog, but I want to make sure I'm not getting into a money pit first cause I've already got one of those (240sx).