Four Wheels on my Wagon....

As this weekend was one of the rare occasions that we weren’t away I managed to spend a whole day in the garage. The first task was to centre the steering rack, fit the trackrod ends and set the front toe in (more on trackrod ends later). To check the toe in a 1m long aluminium angles was clamped to the face of each hub – centred about the hub and set horizontal. The distances between the front and rear ends were then measured and the track rods adjusted accordingly. GD specify 0-1.5mm toe in over a wheel width – I set the front wheels to 2mm toe in over 1m.

Having set the total toe in – the front wheels then needed to be aligned to the rear wheels by making reference to the line of thrust determined earlier. The aluminium box section was clamped over the rear hubs with the centreline of chassis, rear hubs and thrust line offset marked on it. The trusty laser level was then clamped to the face of the front hub and projected back to the box section. The track rod ends were then adjusted by equal but opposite amounts until the laser dots where equidistant from the line of thrust mark. The angles were then replaced on the hubs and the total toe-in checked again and adjusted slightly. The laser was then used again to check the alignment relative the line of thrust – all OK.

So we’ve now got four wheels all pointing in the same direction! The next thing to do was to adjust the steering rack to eliminate bump steer. This was done by clamping one of the angles to the hub face with the other placed on the floor and aligned to it with the top wishbone horizontal (normal ride attitude):

A jack under the lower wishbone was then used to move the suspension through it’s full range of movement (13” between damper fixing holes for full droop and 10” between holes for full bump). The steering rack needed to be adjusted so that the two angles remained parallel throughout the full suepension range.

After a fair bit of faffing about the steering rack ended up right at the top of it’s adjustment and this was good for all but the last ¼ of an inch of bump or droop – there was no adjustment left? (see track rod ends later).

The next job was to fit the front springs and dampers – followed by the brake pads – all quite simple with no problems. Having completed the front end (hopefully) I noted that the steering seemed fairly stiff and I was concerned about the ability for it to self centre (definite SVA fail if it doesn’t!). Loooking around I could see that the rubbers on the track rod end ball joints seemed to be pinched with the suspension on full droop (caused by fitting the springs). To be honest I was a little concerned when I fitted the track rod ends as there was quite a lot of thread showing compared to the reference photos in the build manual. Either the tapered hole in the steering are is too big or the track rod end taper is tool small – or it’s all OK. I’ll e-mail the photo to Andy at GD and see what he says. Lets hope I don’t have to change something as that’ll mean undoing a lot of what I’ve just done!

So to take my mind off this I fitted the springs and dampers to the rear – remembering not to tighten the rear most upper fixing on both sides as eventually a bracket needs to be fitted here for the rear stay fixing for the roll over hoops.

So now it really is starting to look like a car: It’s interesting to compare the new back end: To the original donor item: A veritable phoenix from the ashes!

I finished off by fitting the grease nipples to the rear hubs and greasing all the nipples on the back end.

I’m a little concerned about the track rod end issue – hope it turns out not to be a problem?