How to set your own wheel alignment.
Ruby failed the MOT last Saturday for a dodgy track rod end and rusty brake pipes. I replaced both during the week and managed to get her booked in for a retest yesterday (passed BTW 
). Having replaced the track rod end I had to get the wheels realigned so I took her the the only place available at short notice. Picked her up to drive to the MOT centre and guess what? Yip you got it in one, pulling badly to the left.
This is the third place I have taken her to get the tracking set and none have done it right so in frustration I decided to give it a go. Lets face it I couldn't do a worse job than the numpties I have taken her to.
Here is how my son and I did it.
Using four blocks of wood and a bit of string we managed to set the tracking better than it has been since I got the car over a year ago.
On our first attempt we got the blocks nicely pushed against the wheels and stared at the string in disbelief. It was a country mile out so we thought about it for a while before my son suggested we check the track width of front and back wheels. Turns out the rear is 5mm wider than the front so we looked for something to shim out the string at the rear by 2.5mm each side (push the string 2.5mm closer to the car making it dead in line with the front). An Oboe nail with the head cut off was a perfect fit so with that done it was still badly out particularly on the near side but since the car was diving violently towards the verge if I released the wheel I knew it would be.
We then adjusted the tracking in the direction it needed to go by approx half a turn at a time before shaking the steering wheel to settle it and checked again. After a while we got it looking pretty close so we got a protractor and found it was approx 1 degree toe in which sounded about right and to be honest was probably as near as we would get it using the equipment we had.
I took her for a 100 mile drive today and it is handling better than ever, I will however keep an eye on the tyre wear just in case but for now I am well chuffed.
This is the third place I have taken her to get the tracking set and none have done it right so in frustration I decided to give it a go. Lets face it I couldn't do a worse job than the numpties I have taken her to.
Here is how my son and I did it.
Using four blocks of wood and a bit of string we managed to set the tracking better than it has been since I got the car over a year ago.
On our first attempt we got the blocks nicely pushed against the wheels and stared at the string in disbelief. It was a country mile out so we thought about it for a while before my son suggested we check the track width of front and back wheels. Turns out the rear is 5mm wider than the front so we looked for something to shim out the string at the rear by 2.5mm each side (push the string 2.5mm closer to the car making it dead in line with the front). An Oboe nail with the head cut off was a perfect fit so with that done it was still badly out particularly on the near side but since the car was diving violently towards the verge if I released the wheel I knew it would be.
We then adjusted the tracking in the direction it needed to go by approx half a turn at a time before shaking the steering wheel to settle it and checked again. After a while we got it looking pretty close so we got a protractor and found it was approx 1 degree toe in which sounded about right and to be honest was probably as near as we would get it using the equipment we had.
I took her for a 100 mile drive today and it is handling better than ever, I will however keep an eye on the tyre wear just in case but for now I am well chuffed.
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publié par vb @ 16:30
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