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Wheel alignment


Phil Wall

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Thanks Francesca,

 

 

Just given them a ring and they appeared to know what they were talking about, time about 1.00 to 1.30 hours.  Just before I go for it are there any specific questions I should ask before I part with my  £60.

 

They said they have all the figures for the  MKIV,   but I guess it would not  hurt  to take a copy  of  Stu's post along.  

 

Are any settings altered if you have Eibach's?

 

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Guest Martin F

 

There is a set of spec's on MKIV.com (or the backup site) called 'Lance's Alignment' which are supposed to counteract the inside edge wear.

 

May be worth looking at.

 

As far as i am aware the spec is the same for UK spec or Jap spec.

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Quote: from Phil Wall on 8:57 am on Mar. 13, 2002[br]Thanks Francesca,

 

 

Just given them a ring and they appeared to know what they were talking about, time about 1.00 to 1.30 hours.  Just before I go for it are there any specific questions I should ask before I part with my  £60.

 

They said they have all the figures for the  MKIV,   but I guess it would not  hurt  to take a copy  of  Stu's post along.  

 

Are any settings altered if you have Eibach's?

 

 

I just totally fail to see how they can do a proper 4 wheel re alignment for 60 quid...  I would charge a minimum of 200 quid. It's time consuming and fraught with potential problems. I'd do a CHECK for perhpas 75 quid, but that would be it. Either I am mega dear, or they are mega cheap, or there's a misunderstanding somewhere.

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I am going to toyota for a wheel alignment . . . I'm being charged £60 +VAT for two hours, which they say is how long it will take to inspect, plus adjustment time - I am unclear if there will be an extra charge for this.

 

What should they be checking/adjusting?

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Dug the settings out from a post on Technical forum called "Excessive tyre wear one side" on 2 Dec 2001 :  (note that "-0°34'  " is negative 34 minutes of camber which is just over 0.5*degrees* of negative camber as there are 60minutes in 1 degree.)

 

Below are my final settings that i got done yesterday.    Note that some of the settings (camber, principally) are a compromise between handling and tyre wear.     More negative camber *could* give you a little more grip when cornering hard BUT it will wear the inside edges of your tyres.    and they're S-02's so not cheap....

I went for slightly less negative front camber than Wayne would normally do as my last fronts wore badly on the inside edge and less camber should help ease that situation.

 

Anyway here they are :   (car lowered with Eibachs/Bilsteins) running 17" stock wheels with 255 rears and 235 fronts.   Note that this is in degrees ( ° ) and minutes ( ' ), where 60 minutes = 1 degree :

 

LEFT CASTER : 4°11'

RIGHT CASTER : 4°02'

 

FRONT LEFT CAMBER : -0°34'  (i.e. about half a degree negative)

FRONT RIGHT CAMBER : -0°32'

 

FRONT LEFT TOE : -0°01'

FRONT RIGHT TOE : -0°01'

 

LEFT SAI (Steering Axis inclination) : 9°46'

RIGHT SAI (Steering Axis inclination) : 9°34'

 

INCLUDED ANGLE (not sure to be honest what this is !) :

LEFT :  9°40'

RIGHT : 9°42'

 

 

REAR LEFT CAMBER : 1°16'

REAR RIGHT CAMBER : 1°11'

 

REAR LEFT TOE : 0°14'

REAR RIGHT TOE : 0°09'

 

THRUST ANGLE : 0°02'

 

 

 

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"Front Castor".  

erm, Castor is essentially the angle that the front suspension upright makes with the vertical.    more castor will generally give more straight-line stability.    more castor means that there will be a stronger tendency for the steering to "revert to straight-ahead" after winding lock on for taking a corner.    This will probably be felt less on a car with PAS like the mkiv than acar with manual steering.   ZERO castor would mean that if you let go of the steering wheel after entering a corner there would be NO "self-correction" for the steering to return to "straight-ahead".    All cars have some castor.   I'm sure CW can give a better description than me....

 

Thrust angle is (I think) essentially the angle that the driven axle (rear on a mkiv) is "thrusting" the car, realtive to perfectly straight-ahead.   i.e. total rear toe angle.    so if the left rear was toeing OUT 5 degrees (hopefully not...) and the right rear was toeing IN 5 degrees (hopefully not...) then the the rear wheels are both essentially pointing left 5 degrees and therefore the thrust angle *relative to "straight-ahead"* would be 5 degrees.  (this is not desirable !!).    Thrust angle should be zero degrees in all situations.

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Quote: from Doughie on 10:29 pm on Mar. 13, 2002[br]"Front Castor".  

erm, Castor is essentially the angle that the front suspension upright makes with the vertical.    more castor will generally give more straight-line stability.    more castor means that there will be a stronger tendency for the steering to "revert to straight-ahead" after winding lock on for taking a corner.    This will probably be felt less on a car with PAS like the mkiv than acar with manual steering.   ZERO castor would mean that if you let go of the steering wheel after entering a corner there would be NO "self-correction" for the steering to return to "straight-ahead".    All cars have some castor.   I'm sure CW can give a better description than me....

 

Thrust angle is (I think) essentially the angle that the driven axle (rear on a mkiv) is "thrusting" the car, realtive to perfectly straight-ahead.   i.e. total rear toe angle.    so if the left rear was toeing OUT 5 degrees (hopefully not...) and the right rear was toeing IN 5 degrees (hopefully not...) then the the rear wheels are both essentially pointing left 5 degrees and therefore the thrust angle *relative to "straight-ahead"* would be 5 degrees.  (this is not desirable !!).    Thrust angle should be zero degrees in all situations.

 

The nice trick with positive castor is it also ADDS negative camber with lock. maximum braking in a straight linne suggests that camber should be zero, corner roll suggests it is negative, so a compromise needs to be reached for good braking with all of the tread width evenly weighted onto the road surface, against negative camber to keept the tyre contact patch flat in roll, during cornering. By adding a lot of positive castor turning the steering wheel adds negative camber, at just such a time as it is desireable, allowing less negative in a straight line environment. Downside is heavier steeering, which is ofter countered by the PAS being overly light to start with :=

 

This is a fairly simplified explanation, but adding castor will allow better corenring power without compromising braking as much as doing this by purely adding more negative. maximum cornering power on road cars is often achieved at alarming sounding amounts of negative camber. My Skyline performed best with about 5 degrees, and as much castor as the adjustments would allow. It tramlined on the road, and the steering was noticeably heavier, but boy the front end gripped well in corners for a fast lorry :-)

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Northway tyres did mine.   (a quick 'n' dirty 'n inadequate job at first followed by a very thorough job when i gave them some sh1t).

 

they charged by memory about £110 all-in.     toe, camber, castor etc.    i did have to go back to them as i said, as they "skimped it" on the 1st visit immediately after i had my Eibachs/Bilsteins fitted.

 

They said that the MAX cost they'd charge for everything to be adjusted was about £155  (+VAT ?? = not sure).  so that would be toe, camber, castor, camber, steering angle inclination, the whole shebang.    

Micheldever i hear do a v throurough job, so much so that they book in ONLY ONE CAR per weekday.    that's it.    one car per day.    

no cars for geometry changes at w/e.       not sure of cost.   but it's kinda nice to know that your motor is the only car that they're setting up the geometry that day.    at least they have no reason to rush it.

 

 

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  • 5 months later...

Hi,

 

I noticed that my front tyres were wearing down the outer edge on both sides and after checking some older threads it sounded like the alignment was out. So, I checked into the Toyota Dealer and they pulled of this report.

 

My interpretation is that I am out in the following areas:

 

Castor

Front Toe

Rear Right Camber

Rear Right Toe

 

They said that the adjustment threaded bolt on the rears were rusted/full of crap and could not be adjusted/moved at all. So, I asked what my options were. He told me that either you can replace the arm where the bolt is located at £lots£ or try to soak them in oil or something overnight and with a lot of time and effort, free the original bolts. I asked if he was willing to do this. So, I’m booked in for 3 days the week after next.

 

Looking at what Doughie has done and Lance’s settings on the MKIV.com site should I tell my dealer that I want the settings that Lance has up ? Is anyone running with these settings ? Does it make a big difference ? It sounds like a good set-up.

 

I see that he is running with lots of positive Castor so if my understanding is correct from CW’s post this is a good option as the Camber will be more negative when turning in. Just when I need more ?

 

Am I on the right track here ? I am really very new to wheel alignments so any advice would be appreciated.

 

Note: The Target data from the SUN SAC-1800 is different from what Lance has posted as Stock Toyota Alignment. Any reason for this ?

 

 

****It will not take the .bmp attachment so I will PM it to Branners*****

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Here we go, the .bmp file was too big.

 

Rear Camber Left -1°44’ D

Right –0° 57’ D

 

Rear Toe Left +0° 11’

Right +0° 26’*

 

Front Camber Left -0° 25’ D

Right +0° 07’ D

 

Front Toe Left -0° 02’

Right -0° 02’

 

Castor Left +2° 38’*

Right +2° 47’

 

K.P.I. – Kingpin inclination

Left +9° 17’

Right +9° 16’

 

Toyota Target Data (Max.diff. Left/Right)

Rear Camber -1° 30’ / +0° 45’ –0°45’ +0° 30’

Rear Toe +0° 09’ / +0° 06’ –0°06’

Front Camber -0° 20’ / +0° 45’ –0°45’ +0° 30’

Front Toe +0° 00’ / +0° 06’ -0°06’

Castor +3° 30’ / +0° 45’ -0°45’ +0°30’

K.P.I. +9° 35’ / +0° 45’ -0° 45’

 

* = Well out

D = ??

 

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Guest Martin F

I have had Lance's alignment done on the Supe (or as close to it as the garage could get) and it defenitely has sorted out that tyre wear on the inside edge.

 

Before my car was tramlining badly but now it seems to handle pretty well, except maybe at higher speeds where it can get a little twitchy.

 

I'm no expert on wheel alignement and hence my intention to visit CW sometime and have him set my car up.

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