Steering rack adjustment brackets

[Christopher Marsden]

Hello,

Can anyone advise on what adjustments I need to look for when fitting a pair of the steering rack adjustment brackets. I gather the height of the rack should be relative to the height of the crossmember but am unsure where to start with this other than to begin with setting the adjustable part of the bracket to the same height as the original bracket coming off the car?

Does the adjustment affect the steering behaviour on roads with different cambers?

Perhaps there is an article somewhere explaining all this.

Many thanks

[PhL]

Yes, look at these articles
http://loutrel.org/Fab_supports_cremail ... ables.html
http://loutrel.org/cremah.html
It's a very demanding job, but worth the effort as it wipes out the "bump-steering"
I recommend using a laser on each wheel.
Take your time, may take a whole week-end....


" ...begin with setting the adjustable part of the bracket to the same height as the original bracket coming off the car?"

Good idea but you will find out that the final setting is sensitive to 0.2 or 0.3 mm.
The worst part is repeatedly loading and unloading the front of the car , a real pain in the ass

[Christopher Marsden]

Thank you, it sounds like I may need to set aside some time.

[Christopher Marsden]

By the way, someone has lent me a bump steer gauge. I don't know how to use this yet but will it assist me in this process? I am assuming it will but unsure when to use it.

Regards,

[PhL]

Have you a picture of this bump steer gauge?

[Christopher Marsden]

Yes, I do.

The guy who lent it to me said to attach one of the plates to the wheel hub and to disconnect the tie rod.

DCD96941-8365-4BEC-A4A6-B57F345AC074.jpeg

[Christopher Marsden]

Yes, I do.

The guy who lent it to me said to attach one of the plates to the wheel hub and to disconnect the tie rod.

7AF60D49-852C-4712-A836-5A4E81C78814.jpeg

[PhL]

OK this is to sense how the wheels change parallelism when the car goes up and down.
I used the équivalant once, ( comes from http://loutrel.org/cremah.html)

opt.jpg

It works well, although I think the laser method is more convenient

[Christopher Marsden]

Great, thank you very much. Lots to study and learn about.

Basic question but I gather the overriding aim here is to adjust the height of the steering rack in order to arrive at a position where the toe in of the front wheels either doesn't alter at all, when the suspension moves up and down, or moves by such a minuscule amount that it doesn't matter?

I've seen a video on YouTube where instead of adjusting the rack height , spacers are put on the track rod ends to presumably achieve the same effect? If so this would only work if you had enough thread length on the track rod ends to achieve the adjustment....plus it's less safe to do it this way.

[PhL]

Your description is perfectly right.
On the A310 for instance, there is a builtin way to adjust it with washers/spacers where the rack is mounted on the chassis.
Not so in A110.
"... spacers are put on the track rod ends to presumably achieve the same effect"
I don't see how you can do that practically and what the effect would be anyway.