Tracking and steering wheel position

[Dan6457]

Ive just tweaked up my new track rod ends to get the tracking roughly right for the drive to the alignment place. Ive got it pretty much spot on, and the rods are in the ball joints equal amounts (nearly all the way in) and I then straightened the steering wheel on the spline and thought everything was fine, but Ive just turned it lock to lock and its half a turn more to the the left than the right. So to equal that I'd have to turn the wheel a quarter turn to the right, but then I won't have enough thread on my track rods to align the wheels. Anyone got any ideas?

[Dan6457]

Ive just got back from the alignment center. They managed to get it near enough right, but the nearside trackrod is now fully wound into the rod end all the way :?

Also the alignment computer found that the Castor is a few degrees out on one side, but thats not adjustable is it. Could that be the lower suspension are is bent back a little?

[Tourettes Tony]

could be dan, but ishouldn't worry about it my car is out all over the place but i have grown to accept it.
Just check the obvious and if it looks ok leave it TT

[Peter Filsell]

Guys!

What should the tracking actually be???

The workshop manual states that the toe in should be 3mm on each wheel but what if you have the euro springs fitted??

Can the castor be adjusted but not the camber?? As you can probably tell i haven't got a clue and i doubt my local garage will have either so any help would be appreciated!

[NickT]

3mm Toe in per wheel.

There was a service/ tech bulleting:

http://www.dmcnews.com/bulletins/ST-34-1.82.html

This stated that the front of the car had to be weighted until the chassis was lowered until it was 140mm from the floor.
This of course was written with the original springs in production.
With the lowered springs this height is correct anyway so the weighting does not have to be added.

Other bulletins can be found at:

http://www.dmcnews.com/bulletins/

As caster/ camber is non adjustable (with OEM parts), I would check that the values are close to each other. They will be different to the values stored in the computerised/ database alignment machines.

Make sure that the alignment place aligns the rear wheels to the centreline of the vehicle first and NOT just do a front to rear alignment only. This would not minimise the thrust lines.

Print off the bulletin and they should understand it.

Hope this helps,

NickT

[Dan6457]

Yes thats what they did to mine. They bought the front and rear toe into spec, but the camber on both was out of spec and non adjustable, but similar values each side so nothing to worry about. Its only the caster thats weird on mine, but its obviously not enough to cause any problems because it drives great.

The thrust line on mine was well out but its now 0 degrees.

[Peter Filsell]

Thanks for your help guys, I will let you know how i get on.

Hope you are still blinging Nick!

[NickT]

My car actually got a bit of a clean at the weekend with the help of a good friend
What a difference !

Dan, is she handling nice now?

NickT

[Dan6457]

Yeah she handles great. The steering wheel is straight when I go in a straight line as well now :wink: Just got my venturi to fit and set up now when I get some spare time :roll: