eight degrees

fatstax · COBOURG, ONT

eight degrees

sasquatch · NORTH BAY, ONT

Is this procedure not the same as setting castor?

Molten · CAMBOURNE, ONT

Good reference material for king pin steering systems.

http://www.timloto.org/download/pdf_lesbrieven/steering/chapter2wheelgeometry.pdf

This does not give you the answers you need , but will give the different aspects of the geometry involved. On mine, I believe I used around 5 to 6 degrees.

-- Edited by Molten on Friday 5th of October 2012 01:03:24 PM

-- Edited by Molten on Friday 5th of October 2012 04:01:51 PM

123pugsy · MARKHAM, ONT

Yeah, I would imagine it has to do with castor.

If you let go of the steering wheel the car (truck) will continue to drive straight.

carta · GUELPH, ONT

On a straight axle adjusting the "lean" is setting your castor. Best done by placing wedges between the axle and spring to adjust your degrees of castor. You will probably need to adjust it taking into account the weight over the front and rear axle. You can find most of the info you need in any truck suspension textbook or site for steering and suspension geometry.

carta · GUELPH, ONT

I just scanned the info for you but not having any luck with attachments on here. Aurgh

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Yep Fatstax, that is the caster angle. I think I had 5 degrees in mine and then after driving it I found it shimmied a little at high speed. I adjusted it up to 7 degrees and no more problems.
This angle is very important. Too little it will shake and shimmy, not drive straight. Too much and it won't steer very well to go around corners.
This angle will vary with suspension adjustment. That is, if you raise or lower one end of the car it will change the caster angle.

SKAR · PETERBOROUGH, ONT

It is like lengthening your wheelbase is what ive gotten out of it. My miata has adjustable everything, being a short car adjusting the caster made the steering heavier at speed and feel a lot more planted as well. Good for getting sideways as the wheel wants to return to the direction of the car when let go of.

Rochie · LONDON, ONT

OK Here we go,

Camber is the inward/ outward tilt of the wheel as viewed from the front of the car. Caster is the tilt of the king pin/spindle front to back as viewed from the side of the car. Camber will pull to the most positive degree and caster pulls to the negative degree. So you want steering that is straight down the road and has a little "heavy" feel and returns to center. camber will be to vehicle specs BUT the settings should be 1/2 degree MORE postive on the left wheel, to compensate for the crown in the road. Caster should be set to 1/2 degree MORE negative on the left wheel. We used to call this the middle. If you're a 75 year old woman and want the steering to "feel" light and no highway speeds, you want as much negative caster as you can adjust. This used to be called the "Granny"setting. If you want the car to go straight and have steering that returns to center, you want as much positive caster as you can adjust. We called this the "salesman" setting. You also want the above differences in caster/camber angles to stay the same, so the car will run straight down the road and won't "pull" one way or the other. Obviously you can't set up a front end to handle EVERY situation perfectly, but if a front end is set up right ...it's a joy to drive.

How about this for 75 MPH

-- Edited by Rochie on Saturday 6th of October 2012 01:58:55 PM

sasquatch · NORTH BAY, ONT

Ha Ha, this reminds me of back many decades ago when i was young and foolish as they say.
I had a 57 GMC pickup and had installed a 394 Olds engine along with the older 4 speed hydramatic. Anyway a HIGH front end was the "IN" thing in street cars then, and i installed 4inch high riser blocks in the front end (Straight Axle"), MAN that thing was a bear to drive till i found out i needed those wedges, after that she drove pretty good!
(other than i really needed to Extend the drag link, it was on quite an angle!)

Live and learn or "Lessons from the School of Life". Lol

dualquadpete · BLACKSTOCK, ONT

is it caster that returns the strg. whl. back to centre???? I was driving Rusty's 70 Cutlass down here in W.V. & his doesn't come back!!! He said he had it aligned & they didn't have to adj anything but "toe in"???? Red Neck Pete [I'm blending in down here with the rest of them,just have to learn to drop the EH!!!]

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

dualquadpete wrote:
is it caster that returns the strg. whl. back to centre???? I was driving Rusty's 70 Cutlass down here in W.V. & his doesn't come back!!! He said he had it aligned & they didn't have to adj anything but "toe in"???? Red Neck Pete [I'm blending in down here with the rest of them,just have to learn to drop the EH!!!]

Yes Pete, caster has everything to do with steering wheel returning to centre. The caster and camber are adjustable on your friends 70 Cutlass by shimming the upper control arm in and out. The alignment shop should have a print out of the specs. Camber should be about 1/2 degree postive, camber about 3 degress positive and toe in about 1/16". (these specs are from memory, and assuming there is radial tires on the car) original bias ply spec maybe different and not used with radial tires.

123pugsy · MARKHAM, ONT

dualquadpete wrote:
is it caster that returns the strg. whl. back to centre???? I was driving Rusty's 70 Cutlass down here in W.V. & his doesn't come back!!! He said he had it aligned & they didn't have to adj anything but "toe in"???? Red Neck Pete [I'm blending in down here with the rest of them,just have to learn to drop the EH!!!]

Yep. Its caster that returns the wheel and allows the car to continue straight with your hands off the wheel kind of like a bicycle.

SKAR · PETERBOROUGH, ONT

Toe out on the front will also make the car more stable during "maneuvers" if you have irs toe in on the rear will also make it easier to oversteer.

I like to play with alignment from time to time.

-- Edited by SKAR on Saturday 6th of October 2012 10:45:47 PM

123pugsy · MARKHAM, ONT

I like your setting "names" Rochie.
Thanks for the fine tuning details.

Slammed 35 · HOOTERVILLE, ONT

Good lesson on front end alignment Rochie. I see you are also a high speed stunt driver! biggrin

fatstax · COBOURG, ONT

thats photoshopped rochie, at that speed a real hot rod would be in the ditch by then, isnt the goal to build a rod so its virtually undrivable? ddnt you watch days of thunder? loose is fast and on the verge of bring out of control! now stab some old bias plys mixed with some radials on ur car and go out and have some fun!

Rochie · LONDON, ONT

Skar,

you may be able to run toe-out on the track with IFS, BUT with a straight axle car ONLY 1/8th" toe-IN will do. Toe-out on an axled car causes all kinds of headaches, including scrubbing the inside edge of the tire...really quickly.

Fatatax,

noooo, that's not photoshopped. That car will do that for a 1/2 mile or until it hits a fairly good break in the pavemnet. All the way to Victoria and back...one fingered driving.

SKAR · PETERBOROUGH, ONT

Toe out on the street, just switching tires front to rear to even out wear once and a while.