Well, after a couple of months on the road, finally got round to setting the tracking up a bit better - had it set about 3 / 5 degrees toe in and knew it wasn't quite right - reset it yesterday to about 1 / 2 degrees and the difference is astounding. Before, it was a bit difficult to steer perfectly straight, and now you can take both hands off the wheel and its nice and steady.

However, I'm not too happy with the amount of thread left inside the TREs - about 8 full turns - is there some way to get a bit more length (as the actress said to the bishop!) either on the rack or on the TREs themselves?

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Originally posted by stevegough
Well, after a couple of months on the road, finally got round to setting the tracking up a bit better - had it set about 3 / 5 degrees toe in and knew it wasn't quite right - reset it yesterday to about 1 / 2 degrees and the difference is astounding. Before, it was a bit difficult to steer perfectly straight, and now you can take both hands off the wheel and its nice and steady.

However, I'm not too happy with the amount of thread left inside the TREs - about 8 full turns - is there some way to get a bit more length (as the actress said to the bishop!) either on the rack or on the TREs themselves?

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8 threads should be OK, though less than I'd expect. You want 1 1/2 times the diameter of length as a general rule. Which is more than the number of threads in a nut and you don't panic about them stripping threads much.

Ok, cheers, what about using a pair of these? rack exts

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Originally posted by stevegough
Ok, cheers, what about using a pair of these? rack exts

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8 turns will be fine.
0.5 degree is perhaps still too much toe-in.
If you are using a Trakrite to measure toe then you can adjust with a fair degree of accuracy, the key is getting the toe setting just on the toe-in side of zero aim for as close as possible to 0.125 degrees. 0.25 toe-in is Ok but don't let it toe-out.

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Originally posted by britishtrident
8 turns will be fine.
0.5 degree is perhaps still too much toe-in.
If you are using a Trakrite to measure toe then you can adjust with a fair degree of accuracy, the key is getting the toe setting just on the toe-in side of zero aim for as close as possible to 0.125 degrees. 0.25 toe-in is Ok but don't let it toe-out.

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Thanks for all your replies up to now, guys.....
So, the initial setting of 3 to 5 degrees was pretty way off, then? Just to clarify, I have set it now at 1 to 2 degrees, not half a degree. I have no gauging equipment, so all these angles are pretty approximate - as for setting it to fractions of an angle like 0.125 or even 0.25 degrees, I haven't a hope without professional measuring equipment.

Thanks for your reply regarding the extensions, Chippy. I have just read an article in Adam Wilkins' 'Track Days 2010' which shows a very similar problem to mine - they fitted these TRE extensions by cutting the outer end of the TRE off, and then a small amount of the track rod, too.

The main worry I have is, when I unscrewed the fitting on the RHS of the car, after about 2 to 3 turns the TRE starts to kink out of alignment with the rod - I think there may be a bit of a slight taper in the thread in the TRE? May be the answer is to simply get some longer TREs with the same threads?

What I don't want is for the two bits to come adrift at speed - its got me a bit worried.

quote:

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Originally posted by stevegough
Thanks for all your replies up to now, guys.....
So, the initial setting of 3 to 5 degrees was pretty way off, then? Just to clarify, I have set it now at 1 to 2 degrees, not half a degree. I have no gauging equipment, so all these angles are pretty approximate - as for setting it to fractions of an angle like 0.125 or even 0.25 degrees, I haven't a hope without professional measuring equipment.

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Buy a Gunson Trakrite costs about £50 get the money back in tyre wear

http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=153195

Get a std laser pointer & make up a bit of wood to hold it parallel to & just away from the wheel face.
Park close to garage wall, perpendicular to wall.
Centralise the steering wheel.
Using laser on both front wheels, measure distance between spots on wall = X2
Back car away from wall approx. a couple of meters = Y.
Measure distance between spots again = X1

Your single wheel toe-in is tan-1((X1-X2)/2Y)).

Cost? £4.99 laser pointer & some 'O' level trig.
Oh- and a garage wall!

quote:

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Originally posted by bartonp
http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=153195

Get a std laser pointer & make up a bit of wood to hold it parallel to & just away from the wheel face.
Park close to garage wall, perpendicular to wall.
Centralise the steering wheel.
Using laser on both front wheels, measure distance between spots on wall = X2
Back car away from wall approx. a couple of meters = Y.
Measure distance between spots again = X1

Your single wheel toe-in is tan-1((X1-X2)/2Y)).

Cost? £4.99 laser pointer & some 'O' level trig.
Oh- and a garage wall!

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Is it worth checking when the car is fully laden to see if you have any strange toe-in/out tendancies?