Poor handling :(

[luthor1]

Where are you?

I can recommend an amazing garage on the A34 for fitting parts, and I 3S in the neighbourhood should know someone who can do 4-wheel alignment.

[Jim-SR]

there are lots of places that can do 4 wheel alignment, but not very many that can do it properly. 99% of places user laser setups now, which in theory should be quite accurate, but they mount onto the wheel in a retarded manner and you can get a degree or so of inaccuracy just from the mounting of the equipment onto the rim. all of the laser printouts ive ever seen have been fairly inaccurate

the other problem is that places using laser equipment are doing so because its easier. this means its faster, which means a cheaper price to the customer, but it also means that they arent going to spend as long setting things accurately. they just get one thing close, then adjust another, which consequently pulls the first thing out of alignment (camber and toes generally affect one another, and it takes 2 or 3 tweaks to get both correct)

people that are looking for precision use good old strings, and camber gauges. you create a parallel rectangle of string around the car equaly spaced side to side, then measure the differences in distance from the front of each rim to the rear of each rim, this gives toes. and the camber gauge just sits up against the top and bottom of the rim and reads off a digital angle relative to perfectly flat. you obviously need a flat floor for this so that the car is perfectly level to start with. weve got one concreted into the workshop floor

it obviously takes a fair bit longer to do it with string, but its the only way you can be sure of the accuracy. its still the method of choice in top end motorsport, even F1 last i heard (although their methods for mounting the string are rather more exquisite lol). thus the best place to get this done is at a motorsport preparation company! costs are usually £250+, but you get what you pay for

if you take your car on track id definitely have it done this way, and have it done at least once a year (ideally you want to do it after every event, because you can come back and say "my car is doing this..." and if youre using a decent motorsport preparation company, they will know what to adjust to improve the car!!). if you just drive on the road then it depends on what you want to spend really. some places will do 4 wheel laser alignment for £150, make sure you get reports from other people on what their work is like though

the place i work is half way between Alton and Petersfield in Hampshire. i cant remember what we charge off the top of my head, but its somewhere between £250-300. its a pointless exercise taking a car for alignment though unless youve made sure that all the toe adjusters are freed up. the rear tie bars are ALWAYS seized, im yet to see a car that has original ones which arent after 17+ years of english weather. even the front ones seize if they havent been touched in a while. it took me 2 hours yesterday to free mine off, and they were last adjusted 2 years ago!! i still havent fully freed one of them (just enough to adjust it where i want it), im going to have to remove the ball joint from the hub to do so because i need to get a die on the thread to clean it out

[Negativvv]

Bah!! I tried to get mine in for a wheel alignment today and they said the adjusters were all frozen up at the rear and told me to come back another day. They also quoted me £120 for the whole thing as practically everything on their readout needed adjustment!

Id free up the bits myself but i dont have a breaker bar or any tools for something like that. What should i do?

[Jim-SR]

youll need more than just tools to free up the rear tie bars anyway! my rear end was showing heavy toe in on one side and heavy toe out on the other. im going to make my own tie bars in the next couple of weeks so i just took off the one that was toeing out today so that i could free it up

it took me a good hour to free up ONE side. i had it in a vice, with mole grips, stilson grips, a heat gun, penetrating oil, i wedged open the slots that are cut in it with a punch and with a LOT of impact and tugging at it i managed to free up one side. stuck it back on the car and dropped one side off to make the adjustments. managed to get it to within 0.5mm of the toe setting on the other side. the car drives a lot better now but its still not ideal, im running 2mm more rear toe than id like to be really

if youre just an occasional driveway mechanic then i wouldnt even bother trying unless youve got a vice, a decent heat gun, and a large hammer lol. and a lot of persistence!!

[Negativvv]

My God Sounds like a biggie, oh guess i better bite the bullet and pay someone to have a go

[Jim-SR]

to be honest, youre probably better off just buying replacement rear tie bars from twos'r'us for £125. if it takes a garage a couple of hours to free them up then youll spend £50-100 anyway on their time, and youll still be left with tie bars that are old and corroded, probably in slightly lesser shape now that theyve been butchered (you cant be gentle with them!!), and likely to be seized up exactly the same next time you come to adjust them (even with copper slip on the threads)

if i didnt have the equipment and ability to make my own more cheaply, id have the twos'r'us ones on there by now purely to save the hassle lol. as it is, my car was handling rather on the dangerous side, so i wanted to get it squared up a bit this weekend and havent had the time to make replacement tie bars yet. they are next on my list though now, along with figuring out how i can fit mk2 struts onto a mk1 without buying new springs (it appears they arent the same pattern)

[cartledge_uk]

As in the other toe bar thread

You only need the tubes

Tom discovered that you can cut the old tubes off and use new tubes check these links


http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic. ... ht=toe+arm

http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic. ... e+tube+cut

It brings the cost down to about £30 all in.

[Negativvv]

Wow alot to consider there!

Need awhile to sit down and swat up on my suspension bits! And the hole gets deeper and deeper!