Cascade Crew

iansane · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 2:19 pm Post subject: Tie rod question?

So I noticed one of the reason my tires have been wearing funky was that the driver side was toed pretty significantly out. I assume from the accident. Are the drivers and passenger side tie rods equal length? Like, the drivers inner + adjuster + outer = passenger inner + adjuster + outer? My drivers side was almost a full inch longer than passenger. Shocked

This isn't supposed to be exact but at least pretty straight for daily'ing until I get a real alignment.

Al Hasse · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 2:44 pm Post subject:

You are correct. I just went out to check mine. Outers on both sides, approximately six inches from edge of adjuster to the center of the rod end. For grins, I checked the inners the same way and came up with about the same six inches.

chevymad · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 3:12 pm Post subject:

You can't really have just one side toe'd in or out. Toe setting is just the difference from the rear to the front of the tire. Then you adjust the left and right sides to get the steering wheel straight. Left and right sides can be completely off with the steering wheel upside down, but the tires will wear fine if the total toe is correct.

iansane · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 4:18 pm Post subject:

Wow. That seems obvious if I think about it. I guess I should have said with the steering wheel straight + passenger side wheel straight the driver seems out of kilter. I pulled the driver side outer TRE in about 5 turns and I'll see if that eyeballs out better. I'm really tempted to setup a jig to measure actual toe. Have to level out the new garage though.

blue89 · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 6:23 pm Post subject:

I have some toe plates I made using 1/4" hardboard. Works really well. Mine look really close to this but I made a cutout on the bottom so the tire bulge doesn't effect the plate.

chevymad · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 6:45 pm Post subject:

So when you drive the wheel is crooked?

Toe settings will either wear both tires equally or make your steering wheel crooked. If you're wearing just one tire there's another setting out of wack.

iansane · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 7:09 pm Post subject:

blue89 · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 7:31 pm Post subject:

I can see how that wasn't too clear. The bottom middle (horizontally) of the plate is cutout cause the tire bulges there. The middle (vertically) of the tire bulge is consistent enough that I use it to align with. You can also use the string trick. Worked really well with my sentra! Just wrap a string around all 4 tires. Google it.

chevymad · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 7:31 pm Post subject:

We've got an old school setup at work. Couple of turntables so theres no friction on the tires. Then a stick with pointers that stick up about mid tire. Then I simply rub a line down the middle of the tire. (jack rig up, hold something pointed against tire, spin tire to leave mark) Put the stick on the backside of the tires and set both pointers on the lines.. Move stick to front of tires and you can see where your toe is. A tape measure can do it, but usually part of the car is in the way to get a measurement halfway up the tire.

blue89 · Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 9:36 pm Post subject:

Does anyone know if there is an upgrade to the centerlink and tie rod's beside going end links? I'm stiffening my a-arms and noticed my tie rods, idler, and steering box bend and flex an unexceptable amount when you push on the wheels with the steering wheel locked. I have solid tie rod adjusters to put on but I don't see that helping the entire problem.

iansane · Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 10:06 pm Post subject:

I don't know of any beefier units but is there really that much deflection during forward motion? Even most "racecars" I see only use rod ends...

blue89 · Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 6:45 am Post subject:

I had the wheel fully drooped when I did it so the tie rods had the best leverage on the centerlink. Just seemed that with a little push in you could see the center link being pushed up cause the arms were deflecting up. I'll try it again tonight with the tie rods level as they would be under normal driving conditions. Still makes me wonder.

Dewey316 · Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 7:02 am Post subject:

There is always deflection. The question is how much, and in which direction.

blue89 · Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 7:29 am Post subject:

That is true. I can see that under normal conditions that the road won't have nearly the leverage I did to make the linkage deflect. I'll install my solid couplers and ignore what I saw, for now.

Ian, have you done any steering upgrades to your front yet?

Dewey316 · Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 7:34 am Post subject:

Zip tie a video camera down there, and post up the results for us all to see!

Really, at normal ride height, the tie rod and center-link are decently close to parallel, compared to when they are at full droop. Also, the outside tire is the one handling most of the force, which will be under even more compression during cornering.

I really have no idea how much deflection there actually is, I would be really interested to see any actual test you do.

--John

iansane · Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 8:45 am Post subject:

blue89 · Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 3:40 pm Post subject:

On my LT1 car I put in poly bushings and then welded extra metal to stiffen it up. Basically just closed in the bottom of the a-arm. Weither or not it actually did anything, I dunno. Sure does make me feel better.

And it's much cheaper than the fancy tubular arms.

DBL_TKE · Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 7:21 pm Post subject: