Wide Track Suspension/Wheel Alignment

[hawksa]

I am tackling the last few jobs before I book my car in for a pre-IVA check at my local garage.

One thing that has been on my list for ages is to roughly align the front wheels. I have followed the manual by cutting off 10mm from each of the steering rod ends before adding the extenders. Unfortunately there still doesn't seem to be enough adjustment range in order to align the wheels. Has anyone had to remove more that 10mm from each end?

Also does anyone have a better method of alignment than the one I have cobbled together - Clamp a piece of long timber to each of the front wheels and measure the distance between them at the front and back?

Cheers,

Simon.

[tisme]

10mm would be about right - I think that's what I removed on mine but it may depend on the brand of track rod end (TRE) - some are slightly longer (or shorter) than others !

A fairly crude but reasonably accurate way is to undo the extender on both sides, align the front wheels to be parallel to the rears (see explanation later), centralise the steering and then rest the steering arm extenders against the TRE's to see if you need to take any more metal off. You can check if it's safe by measuring the depth of the thread in the TRE and the thread depth of the extender - as long as there's enough depth spare in the TRE to allow the extenders to fully tighten up it will be ok.

Now, to get the tracking pretty close (or at least neutral) I use thin nylon cord - if you get some in a bright colour it makes it easier see. Then basically wrap the cord around the tyres (just missing the wheel arches at the rear) so that the cord is lying across the surface of each tyre (use some tape to hold it there) - at the front you can then see how much to adjust them in or out to get them parallel with the rears - I know a racing car manufacturer that would do this and allow a mm or two for toe in/out using this method and when tested with proper kit it was pretty spot on (though that was before the days of lasers / mirrors and digital displays )