Turning circle S1

[wharfedale]

My S1 is now up and running the warm starting is better the mixture has been thickend, now though not a big problem , the the steering turning lock on right hand corners is abismal and on left handers is is to tight like the old triumph heralds, could the last victim (owner) got the track rods the wrong way round or somthing, I know this is unlikey cos the threads are left and right,Or Is it a built in glitch, by the way it go s like stink and is good fun, ready for the summer ?

[pies]

All S's have the turning circle of a bus so dont expect it to be brill once sorted

[coolcatmaz]

I'll second that, though i am getting quite nifty in Tescos car park now

[Jed-S]

Count the number ot turns of the steering wheel to get from the straight ahead position to full lock on each side. If one is more then someone hasn't centered the steering rack in the past. There are several ways to resolve it but it depends on how far out it is.


Also.... make sure nothing is snagging the suspension on full lock. I'm thinking of the air ducting in particular but it could be anything.

[wharfedale]

as near as i can tell its one and half left one and a quarter right

[Jed-S]

oh - mine is just over 1.5 turns each direction. 1.25 turns right will account for a poor turning circle.

When on full lock you need to establish what is stopping the rack moving any more. If there is nothing stopping it on RH luck but there is bodywork/chassis stopping it on LH lock then I'd say that the rack wasn't centered when some work was done in the past.

I'd check the distance from the end of the rack to the trackrod end. If this is noticable different then turn the wheel until the are equal then find out what can be changed to compensate. For example:

Could the steering wheel be fitted in the wrong position? Where an aftermarket one is fitted if they did that wrong then they could have done the tracking to compensate.

Could the triangular steering column joint have been assembled 1 side out?


Because you're talking of a large amount I'd be surprised if it was the UJs on the steering column out of alignment but anything is possible.

Jed

[wharfedale]

it apears to be as it should be just the strack rods needs equelising to give it the same lock on each side, Ill just have to avoid mini roundabouts, Keith.

[spludge]

Don't think you should be adjusting track rods to fix it. Centre the steering wheel, disconnect the steering column and then centre the wheels and reconnect the column.

Best to jack under the wishbones, if you leave the suspension hanging on the shock the track rod end fouls the bottom wishbone. I put a block of wood under the bottom balljoints and jack it a bit at a time each side to stop the ARB twisting. Then just use a tape measure to check the distance from chassis rail to track rod end to work out when the rack is centred.

K

[GreenV8S]

spludge said:

Don't think you should be adjusting track rods to fix it. Centre the steering wheel, disconnect the steering column and then centre the wheels and reconnect the column.

If I've followed this correctly the problem is that somebody else has adjusted the track rods to compensate for the steering column being assembled out of line. In that case it needs the track rods being set back to equal lengths and then the steering column reassembled correctly. The toe-in will need to be reset afterwards.