Having just read the crush tube thread again I am going to take my suspension apart and check, at the same time having spoken to Simon K I am going to move the extra metal washers on the front as he advised:

"Top wishbone all the way back and bottom wishbone all the way forward - you are aiming for maximum caster and the washers / wishbone brackets are the only adjustment we have. Without enough caster it will be very nervous around straight ahead and will not self centre well."

This is again not what the manual advises but I trust Simon's judgement more and I think this is commonly agreed fix? Before I commit myself to this, others may want to comment and endorse as this is something to do at the same time and don’t want to dismantle suspension again!

Thanks.

ive done that, top bones to the back and bottom to the front max castor

Yes.. Top bones to the rear, and lower bones to the front of the car.
This WILL maximise the castor angle.
Its how I've done mine. It has passed SVA like that and is on the road.

The idea of the washers is to allow fine adjustment.
In my opinion you want as much castor angle as the adjustment will allow.
This has nothing to do with the length of the crush tubes issue.
Its about the relative positioning of the upper and lower wishbones to obtain the caster angle.
Rotating the Alloy Adaptor Bush in the top of the front upright will not affect the castor angle.

Castor Angle is measured along a line between the top and bottom ball joints which are located on the wishbones.
So ONLY moving the whishbone positions relative to each other will adjust the castor angle.

Having started to take my suspension apart last night I am upset to see a film of rust forming on my crush tubes making the suspension very stiff indeed. Also making them a ar*e to get out of the bushes. Now I am going to have to polish every crush tube and re-grease. I am going to use the correct grease this time. This is the second time I have taken the suspension apart!

I found this article on suspension. It has a good diagram of caster angle

http://www.autozine.org/technical_school/suspension/tech_suspension1.htm

Hi

It's all very well just pushing the top arm back and the lower fowards. But you want to end up with the SAME amount of Castor on both sides not just the maximum attainable on both sides. This means measuring the Castor angle very accurately.

Cheers Matt

quote:

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Originally posted by procomp
Hi

It's all very well just pushing the top arm back and the lower fowards. But you want to end up with the SAME amount of Castor on both sides not just the maximum attainable on both sides. This means measuring the Castor angle very accurately.

Cheers Matt

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quote:

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Originally posted by Irony
Having started to take my suspension apart last night I am upset to see a film of rust forming on my crush tubes making the suspension very stiff indeed. Also making them a ar*e to get out of the bushes. Now I am going to have to polish every crush tube and re-grease. I am going to use the correct grease this time. This is the second time I have taken the suspension apart!

I found this article on suspension. It has a good diagram of caster angle

http://www.autozine.org/technical_school/suspension/tech_suspension1.htm

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