Not alignment. Not yet anyway.
My new wheels and tyres were dispatched by mytyres today. Collected from Lehrte, near Hanover, by DPD this afternoon.
The logistics thing interests me (not busy at the moment). It will be interesting to see where they are routed. I have a feeling Birmingham (Oldbury?) will feature, it usually does. You must be able to get anywhere from there.
The Mazda is slightly bobbly at the moment, I suspect the rear wheel balance and the 3 different sorts of tyre on it. I'll see how it fares with a matching set, but I will probably have 4 wheel alignment done - it has adjustable camber and caster as well as toe-in front and rear. I won't get it done until I've checked all the joints, bushes and wheel bearings.
If the tyre wear is anything to go by there isn't anything too serious to worry about, the ones that are on are wearing very evenly.
Anybody tried the full alignment job?
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>> Anybody tried the full alignment job?
Yep, recently had the Vectra done. Both fronts were toeing left, and the NS rear camber and toe was out. The only wheel pointing in the right direction was the rear OS.
Cost me £65 at Merityre Abingdon.
The best kit out there apparantely is the Hunter system. Merityre have the Snap-On system which comes a very close second.
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Ah, good. The local chain, Formula 1, have the Hunter.
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>> Both fronts were toeing left,
Doesn't that mean the steering wheel was left of centre?
You may be interested in this thread:www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=100810
Last edited by: bathtub tom on Tue 14 May 13 at 23:48
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>> Doesn't that mean the steering wheel was left of centre?
Not according to the garage and the printout.
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They do the tracking, centre the rack, then finally take the steering wheel off and centre it by moving it a spline or two one way or the other. Or that's what proper garages do without needing to be asked. I noticed straight away when my Aussie indie in Notting Dale did it to my Escort, and he said there was no point in not finishing the job. Does perfect work and charges little, pure gold. That was why I took to giving him the occasional bottle of malt.
Saw him the other day briefly. He reckons the radiator fan in the Chrysler has failed on both speeds, and it's true the temperature gauge sometimes creeps up a bit in silly London snarl-ups. It hasn't boiled since I started keeping the coolant topped up properly, but the gauge should never move from dead level position.
Damn. That's going to cost a few quids.
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>> They do the tracking, centre the rack, then finally take the steering wheel off and
>> centre it by moving it a spline or two one way or the other. Or that's what proper garages do without needing to be asked.
Another job hardly ever done today.
The amount of time it takes to deactivate the airbag, remove it, remove the wheel, refit the wheel, check its now straight, refit the airbag, reactivate the airbag, set up the steering sensor...
... its a lot quicker to bodge it, by centering the wheel by adjusting at the rack...
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>>... its a lot quicker to bodge it, by centering the wheel by adjusting at the rack...
Actually ST, that's always been the right way to do it. Taking the steering wheel off is the bodge.
At the very least, taking the steering wheel off to re-centre is likely to disrupt the cancelling mechanism for the indicators. On MBs with a steering box, it means the steering box would no longer be in the optimum position to remove play in the straight ahead position, and in any modern car with a steering wheel angle sensor, would also screw that up. Taking a steering wheel off during a wheel alignment is a sure sign of a cowboy at work.
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>>... its a lot quicker to bodge it, by centering the wheel by adjusting at the rack...
Actually ST, that's always been the right way to do it. Taking the steering wheel off is the bodge.
Yes and no. You can't assume any car even left the factory with the steering correctly set. For a steering rack car (most of them these days) you measure both sides of the rack and make sure the length of the outboard arms are the same. They frequently aren't as places that track often just adjust one arm to balljoint and then reset (if you are lucky) the steering wheel. This then leads to the comment "toeing out on the right, but toeing in on the left". Not an accurate description, but that is the way a lot of kit works and making it read right if you do the whole job does get the right results.
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>>You can't assume any car even left the factory with the steering correctly set.
Yes, I fully agree it's good practice to make sure the steering wheel, column, and rack / box are correctly assembled *before* checking wheel alignment. Absolutely!
I would, however, argue that any mass produced car should not suffer such incorrect assembly - the fixtures used for assembly should, if properly designed, protect against this.
Last edited by: Number_Cruncher on Wed 15 May 13 at 11:01
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>> >>... its a lot quicker to bodge it, by centering the wheel by adjusting at
>> the rack...
>>
>> Actually ST, that's always been the right way to do it. Taking the steering wheel
>> off is the bodge.
>>
>> Yes and no. You can't assume any car even left the factory with the steering
>> correctly set. For a steering rack car (most of them these days) you measure both
>> sides of the rack and make sure the length of the outboard arms are the
>> same.
Exactly how I meant it.
steering arms must be set properly, if then the wheel if off-centre, then it would need resetting. in too many cases the rack is as SP says, incorrectly set...
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>> Taking a steering wheel off during a wheel alignment is a sure sign of a cowboy at work.
Heh heh... I didn't see my man doing it, and I didn't ask him what he had done. Perhaps he had centred the wheel - which had an airbag - at the rack end. If what you say is right he probably did. A less cowboy-like approach than his you couldn't hope to find.
I did take a couple of steering wheels off myself in the pre-airbag days to centre them (a major reason being to centre the indicator self-cancelling) after wheel alignment following, in one case, a clout that had slightly bent a steering radius arm. It's all a while back now, but I don't mind if people think I am a cowboy. Yee-hah!
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>>to my Escort,
As most Fords have a hexagon behind the wheel rather than a spline, I'm sure that your car was adjusted properly AC.
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I had my Mx-5 done after I'd put 1000 miles on it - I figured that would give enough time for everything to settle down.
It was all within Maxda's specs, but because I'd taken it to a place which specialises in MX-5s they said they could do better. And they did. They turned a great handling car into an exceptional handling car.
It was done on a hunter rig.
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Will have to stay in today.
My wheels left Hanover on Tuesday. By 7pm last night, they were indeed at Oldbury, By 1am this morning they were in Dunstable (that's where it has gone wrong with DPD before for me) and they are now "out for delivery". Better go and clear a space in the garage.
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My wheels from mytyres arrived in three separate deliveries, with ten days from the first to the last.
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Happily mine didn't. I'd given up on them, assuming they must have delivered to the wrong address or knocked as quietly as possible and run away as they do sometimes, when they arrived at 7.30pm!
Now waxed and fitted.
One of the old knocked about Fox wheels had a spigot ring missing.
Looking at the wear on the inside of the front tyres, I think I need to get it looked at next week before our road trip the week after, to Jockland and back via Yorkshire, Northumberland, and North Wales.
I have of course spent more than the value of this car fixing it already. I'd forgotten that was the way with old bangers if you get too determined to have them presentable and mechanically fit.
It will need front discs and pads soon. I can explain that away as maintenance. At least the rears were done before I bought it.
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When you do the front discs and pads, make sure that the slider pins on the caliper are free moving. (pull the rubber boot out of the way and check). I was advised that using coppa slip or similar on the pins made the rubber on the boot to swell and caused the caliper to bind on. I used a rubber friendly silicon grease on the pins.
The caliper will hang nicely off of the coil spring while the discs are removed.
HTH.
PS Do you still want the other set of wheels?
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Hi MJM - yes, no change, I'll mail you again. Thanks.
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Mazda MX5 - Tracking wheels - VxFan
