Steering wheel (non)alignment and increased camber levels?

[churchie2856]

Tyres is a good call.

1) check correct pressures all round.
2) swap front tyres side to side. Does it pull the other way? Yes - defected tyre.
3) swap rear tyres side to side. Does it pull the other way? Yes - defectied tyre.
4) if No and No, then geo.

I've had tyres go bad, and new defected tyres. Can be due to tyre conicity.

Assessing geo with hands off the wheel is, in my opinion, pointless for a varienty of reasons.

Also when a car is on a cambered road (which it is most of the time) the left side of the car will be lower than the right side (by couple of inches at least). So a yellow centre marker on the steering wheel at TDC is actually the equivalent of a right turn steering input.

This why I say park the car on confirmed (with a spirit level) level ground. Centre the steering wheel with a torepedo level across the spokes (the yellow marker could be off); mark a true centre on the boss with masking tape and a pen; and fit a little pointer. Once done you can make emperical and subjective assessments of the way if behaves with the steering wheel in exactly the same position for each run (on the same stretch of road, on the same side in both directions). Doing anythin by eye and feel will give you inconclusive results.

My 718 felt wrong from new; OPC then aligned it under warranty, and thought it went straight the back end felt strange; took it to CG who did a full geo and everything was good ... except the steering wheel positon did not seem quite correct. I did my technique to prove objectively it was incorect, Politely went back to CG who confirmed I wasn't nuts (but slightly geeky), they readjusted FOC and all was good. Pete literally made a <1/8/ turn adjust on each front rod and bingo all fixed.

How long have you owned the car? Has it always been slightly off? I doubt it the rack, or steering angle sensor or splines ... jjust a very slight tweak require.

Also, fwhy such extreme front camber?

[Das speck]

Twinfan said:

Aren't the arrows on the boxes just showing where the setting is in relation to the green range i.e. if you're dead in the middle the arrow will be in the middle, and on my camber settings I'm obviously well outside the standard settings so I get an "X"?

I'm confused because the geo was done with the wheel straight. Therefore, based on the print out, the car should track straight with the wheel centred.

But it doesn't, it goes right. So I have to turn the wheel slightly left to go straight ahead and once going straight if I take my hand off the wheel the car turns left, as you would expect because I'm turning slightly left.

What's confusing me is why I have to turn left to go straight ahead, when the camber of most roads would suggest the opposite.

The arrows are a target either side of the middle is a tolerance amount but if your at the top end of the tolerance then when you get movement it will be outside the range.

The steering wheel being absolutely straight to start and staying straight is a bit hit and miss.

If the problem is that he steering wheel isn’t straight that is adjusted by rotating both tie rods the same way which you can fine tune the steering wheel alignment.

If you ignore the steering wheel you have more lock on 1 side than the other.

You need to reset the rack in relation to the car then attach the steering wheel in the centred position.

The fact you’re getting drift with the hands off the wheel could be 0toe settings and that the settings look like a slight left bias using the arrows and boxes.

As I said a lot of these places don’t actually understand what they need to do and just shoot for greens and that’ll do.

Like it makes a difference which way you make the adjustments - only turning the camber bolts clockwise to sneak up on the setting all make a difference.

[Twinfan]

churchie2856 said:

How long have you owned the car? Has it always been slightly off? I doubt it the rack, or steering angle sensor or splines ... jjust a very slight tweak require.

Also, fwhy such extreme front camber?

Owned the car from new, 15 months. Not sure if it's always been off, but I don't think so, I think it became off after an OPC geo setup.

I prefer the feel of the car with more camber all round.

[Twinfan]

Thanks for the info and advice "Das speck" and "churchie2856". There's not much more I can do until I get the car on the ramps again, but steering wheel alignment on the splines and centering the rack using the toe links will be top of the list to do first.

Cheers again.

[Tripe Bypass]

Did you ever get this resolved, Twinfan?

[Twinfan]

Evening all.

I'm going back in with the car in a couple of weeks. Got a few things to check thanks to the helpful comments in this thread and so I'm hopeful it'll get sorted.

I'll let you know...

[Twinfan]

Afternoon all - issue now sorted. It seems the spirit level when attached to my steering wheel isn't level when it says it's level. We suspect something is throwing it off, maybe the plastic spokes it's attached to?

Anyhow, I aligned the wheel dead straight to my eyes and we geo'd it from there. Job done :Dd

Moral of the story? Don't put blind faith in the gear you're using...

[james.a.c.911]

Twinfan said:

Afternoon all - issue now sorted. It seems the spirit level when attached to my steering wheel isn't level when it says it's level. We suspect something is throwing it off, maybe the plastic spokes it's attached to?

Anyhow, I aligned the wheel dead straight to my eyes and we geo'd it from there. Job done :Dd

Moral of the story? Don't put blind faith in the gear you're using...

Ha! Glad you sorted it.
My steering wheel is lightly off in my SUV, and while i can live with it there, it would also drive me crazy in the 911!

[Das speck]

Twinfan said:

Afternoon all - issue now sorted. It seems the spirit level when attached to my steering wheel isn't level when it says it's level. We suspect something is throwing it off, maybe the plastic spokes it's attached to?

Anyhow, I aligned the wheel dead straight to my eyes and we geo'd it from there. Job done :Dd

Moral of the story? Don't put blind faith in the gear you're using...

Top job.

Do you still have more lock on 1 side than the other?

[Twinfan]

Haven't checked yet but I suspect not. Will confirm later.

[churchie2856]

Twinfan said:

Afternoon all - issue now sorted. It seems the spirit level when attached to my steering wheel isn't level when it says it's level. We suspect something is throwing it off, maybe the plastic spokes it's attached to?

Anyhow, I aligned the wheel dead straight to my eyes and we geo'd it from there. Job done :Dd

Moral of the story? Don't put blind faith in the gear you're using...

This is the same issue I described earlier in this topic. I suspect the fix was a very minor twist of the two front track rods.

[Twinfan]

churchie2856 said:

This is the same issue I described earlier in this topic. I suspect the fix was a very minor twist of the two front track rods.

Yep, exactly that. Root cause was that the steering wheel wasn't straight when setting the alignment.

The issue is that the car is up on ramps for the alignment with a brake pedal depressor fitted etc and therefore it's very difficult to climb into the car. This is why the spirit level is used as an easy check to ensure the wheel is straight.

However, as in my case, if something throws that off then everything gets thrown off. Not an easy thing to spot and it explains why the geo place were saying they coldn't understand what was wrong.

Climbing into a bucket seated car around the brake depressor on a hydraulic lift via a step ladder to check the steering wheel straightness by eye was an interesting experience I can tell you!