Unfortunatly, I did not hear from anyone that was sure they had the right
answers to my questions (That has to be a first for this board) but I did
learn a few things over the weekend and I thought I would share them.
# 1) As far as the shaft being tight I could have a bent shaft, arm or
frame. From working with it (See # 2) it loostened up substantially. The
forks on the arm or the shaft could be slightly less than 1/16 of an inch
"tweaked" but since it loosened up I am not concerned about it anymore. I
guess the grease had to work its way into all the threads.
I am going to have a body shop check out the frame just to be sure (I have a
local guy that just pulled the rear bumper out of the trunk floor on my 90
Maxima and trust him to do it right). With the body off it should be a
simple exercise to make sure everything is square and if not correct it now.
#2 The shop manual says caster (the verticle front/rear angle of the king
pin) can't be adjusted. According to the shop manual if caster is out then
something is bent. I now believe that you can adjust the caster angle by at
least a small degree by adjusting (re-centering) the upper shaft relative to
the upper control arm (I could not make a similar adjustment on the lower
arm the shaft would not turn completely around in the control arm).
The reason I believe this to be so is that I assembled the upper and lower
arms on both sides. I centered the shafts as per the manual, not with the
special tool but carefully with a tape measure. The front springs and
steering knuckle support are not installed so I was able to bring the upper
and lower arms together and check their relationshiop to one another. The
fork that holds the upper part of the steering knuckle support is about 1/4
inch narrower than the fork that holds the lower part of the steering
knuckle support. When I put the upper and lower control arms together one
side was centered (i.e. the forks on the upper were about 1/8 inch inboard
of the forks on the lower arm) On the other side the front fork of the
upper and the front fork of the lower lined up and the rear forks had the
upper about 1/4 inch inside the lower.
(I have pictures of these trials and errors if anyone interested needs to
visualize what I am trying to explain).
I spent about an hour trying to get both sides centered and finally could
not do it without having the shaft waay too far offset from center. SO I
tried setting them up with the front forks aligned and the rear forks having
the upper offset about 1/4 inch inboard of the lower. This worked out fine.
It appeard that with it set up this way there will be slight negative
caster which I believe will help the car stay cenrtered and help the wheels
straighten out when turning. (please correct me if I am wrong on this point
It won't change the car but will help me understand whay I should be
concerned about any of this).
So from this exercise I believe that you can safey adjust the upper control
arm shafts about 2 threads in either direction allowing you slightly adjust
caster. I may not make any difference on how the car drives but if you are
assemblying the shafts without the special centering tool this method will
allow you to verify that at least both sides of the car are set up the same
way.
Hope this all make sense to someone and helps along the way, it certainly
took me a while to figure it all out.
Scott
1956 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer
From: Scott H <kneedrager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Scott H <kneedrager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [FWDLK] Any King Pin Suspension Gurus out there?
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:59:02 +0000
1)When putting the shaft on the upper control arms the Service Manual says
that the shaft should turn using a "Moderate Grip" one seems fine the other
is pretty tight but you can move it by hand, I tried loostening,
re-positioning, changing the bushings and always it came bach the same, the
only thing I can think of is the the shaft could be slightly bent, it
still
moves by hand but is stiff ....it this ok or should i look to change it?
2) The Shop Manual says that caster angle is set by proper installation of
the suspension parts. It looks like this can be adjusted by re-centering
the upper control arm shafts, a time consuming process, but doable, can
anyone provide an at home way to measure the caster angle?
3) When I disassembled my front end there were a couple of shims under the
inner shaft of the lower control arm. I did not see any reference to the
use of shims in the service manual and cannot see how/what they would
affect
regarding front end alignment. Should I leave them out when I put it back
together or put them back where I found them?
4) If you do not knoe do you have an idea if there are any other boards or
sites that i can look at?
Thanks
Scott
1956 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
|
Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network