• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Here is how I did it - alignment

Share this page

jlaird

jlaird

Great Pumpkin
Country flag
Offline
Centered stearing wheel.

Cut two peices of very good plywood 6 in wide and 2 feet long.

Leaned them against the wheels on a flat peice of floor.

Used two measureing tapes, front and rear of tire, and adjust the tie rods till they both read the same, in this case 52 5/8 inchs. Tightend everything back up and measured again.

Of course it means little that maybe the heigth of the two boards is not quite the same, I can't measure that small a difference in that short a span.

I will test with a drive then measure again, remember the distance is not critical as long as they are the same front and rear.

Time to test, we will see.
 
Jack's driving Miss Agatha :driving:
 
Hehe, Jack drives Miss Agatha a couple of times a week.

Went just fine, but stearing still does not like to come back to center easly when you turn a corner. It trys but I think maybe the spindles are a bit tight. Remember everything is new in the suspension so more wearin is required I think. Hmmm. Might help if I put a bit more air in the tires as well.

There are no sticky spots with the front wheels off the ground and all seems smooth and nice but not sloppy. You can not give the wheel a yank and have it spin.
 
Jack, it might not be centering because, as I recall, you should have a slight toe-in (the book says 0 to 1/8")!!
 
This is just me thinking out loud - but, shouldn't you also take a measuement from a fixed point on the car? My thought is that even with the steering wheel centred, you could end up with the wheels parallel but not straight. If you picked a point on the car itself, wouldn't have to be midpoint, you could set one tire parallel to the car - ie. pointing straight, then measure the second tire to the first tire, then set toe in - does this make sense? You could actually even triangulate the measurement to the first wheel
 
after I posted, realized the easiest point of reference could be the sills which I believe are straight.
 
I did turn the wheel lock to lock and got the wheel in the center of the rack gearing, that's all that is needed. If front wheels are centered they are centered. ie pointing straight ahead both of them.
 
Jack,

I'd be interested in what you find out about aligning your front end, as my BE behaves exactly the same way. Like yours, the steering does not come back to center after a turn. I did notice a big improvement in the feel of the steering when I brought the toe-in closer to spec (it was toed out 3/8"). I used a combination square to drop a line from the wheel rims to the garage floor. I measured between the marks and compared the difference. I may check it again now that I've driven it for a while, to see if any more toe in is still needed. FYI, the spindles on my suspension are also rebuilt.

Mike
 
The Ugly Bug does not recenter as well as my Midget did, but I'm hoping that it improves as the new suspension "sets in". I set my toe-in using a tape measure on the treads of the tire so it is not very exact, but I've always done it this way with no problems.

Maybe you guys need to accelerate harder out of turns that will help'em push straight.
 
Yeah, you really need some toe in. Otherwise it will follow every groove in the road and the angle changes a bit when you hit a bump too, so just a bit of toe is needed. I had my toe correct and then after putting the front end back on the extra weight had mad it toe out about 3/8 of an inch and it really was handling crazy then. I remeasured it and readjusted it and it made a world of difference. My tires are wider so it doesn't spring much at all. Wider makes it harder to turn.
 
Hmmm, 0 to 1/8 toe in.

Think Miss Agatha is 0 at the moment. Will try 1/8 in Fri. Got to go out of town tomorrow and pick up grandson.
 
Just about to install front springs and align the front end. regarding the 1/8 toe in, - what is the point of reference? ie. is it 1/8 at the tie rods? the front of the tires? the front of the rims? where do I measure that?
 
1/8th tires.
 
Hmmm.. I wonder how many cars out there are outof alignment due to changing there tire size?
 
No, not at all. But larger tires for example allow for tighter adjustments.
 
Jack, I just got back from Books-a-Million...there's a kit car magazine there that has an article on alinging a front end at home....basically, they stretch a string along both sides of the car even with the car's frame, equidistance from the car.....then, they take a piece of aluminum marked with the height of the wheel/tire combo and lay it along the wheel...they measure from both points marked on the piece of aluminum & adjust the toe-in/toe-out accordingly...(i.e., if the height of the wheel/tire is 26", they lay the center of the 26" marked piece of aluminum along the wheel with the midpoint at the center of the hub...if the measurement at the fromt of the wheel height - from aluminum to string is 4" & at the rear of the wheel height is 6", then there's 2" of toe-in)Think I explained it correctly - but you might need to go read the article.....its the kit car in the plastic bag this month because it has a directory of kit car companies with it.

Oh, has an article on the Westfield Lotus XI with 1275 Series A engine & Midget suspension, steering, brakes.
 
Back
Top