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Standard wheel alignment figures


Scotland North AR

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Hi, can anyone point me in the right direction for standard wheel alignment figures for a 2009 150 Sigma SV please. Castor, camber and toe.

Just replaced my steering rack gaiters and found that before I took the relevant parts to bits, there was 3mm difference between the end of the locknut and the end of the thread on the inside of the track rod at each side.

I'm getting the alignment properly checked in the morning before I drive too far on brand new tyres.

Ta very glad.

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Next time you do it ...this is what I have done on a couple of cars lately.

Lift front of car.

Remove any cover over track rod end and lock nut. 

Draw a line of tippex on flat of nut and onto TRE.

Spanner on flats of TRE and on lock nut. Crack lock nut and turn it back against the TRE.

Blob of Tippex on thread of track rod and onto face of nut. 

Using flats on the track rod, unscrew the rod from the TRE. Should be loose enough to turn by hand once it starts turning.

When it falls out of TRE, remove lock nut and snip cable ties on rack gaiter.

When refitting, don't fit small outer cable tie on new boot until all finished, or you can't turn the rod.

Refit as reverse of above.

Only turn lock nut up to the blob of Tippex. Screw rod home until it touches nut. Then align both marks as you nip up lock nut.

On the driver side ... apply some grease to the teeth under the rack before fitting new gaiter and wind it from lock to lock to distribute.

 

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It depends on how you want the car to drive. I think comon practice it to set it at zero toe and for road 1.5deg negative camber. Then, if you feel it won't turn in adjust to toe out (equally on both sides to keep steering wheel centered)

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I was looking for the “manual” standard road settings as a starting point. I’d read different views on the toe in and out and understood the difference between track and road ok. 

I was struggling to find a definitive Caterham “as delivered” spec before the owner tuned it to their liking.

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Thanks for all that, have now found the table in the various manuals. It varies from toe out in the early manual to toe in in the later one. The relevant terms don’t come up using a search of the PDF documents annoyingly.

Funnily enough, the posting from 2014 which Jonathan refers to is from my mate Tony on Mull!

What I’ll do is get it all measured up in the morning at Kwikfat and revert back with a more comprehensive post summarising it all in one place.

To answer 7W, I’ve never had the suspension properly checked out flat foot wise before.

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Just a cautionary mention, if you are going to adjust the camber, this should be done before setting the tracking. If the camber needs setting you might want to do this yourself or get some advice on here rather than entrust the job to ThikFit.

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Well, there's a thing....

                                           Front of car

Camber

Front -1 degree 15 minutes                     -1 degree 20 minutes

Rear -1 degree 49 minutes                     - 1 degree 43 minutes

Caster

3 degrees 47 min                     4 degrees 46 minutes

Toe in

0 degrees 19 minutes              1 degree 13 minutes

Nothing changed but toe in:- 

10 degrees                              10 degrees

Just gone for the standard setting as I don't track the car. Steering much lighter (as stated in above posts). Going around a few roundabouts on the way home it seems to be a vastly better drive.

The technician at Stonehaven Kwikfit had been a technician for Bosch installing these system before a cycling injury stopped him traveling about. Good to have the machine display in the customer area so you can see what is being adjusted.

£55 well spent.

Will do a longer post to summarize everything.

 

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10 minutes toe in each side was used.

I didn't ballast the car as 99 percent of the time there are two of us in the car so I assumed that the ballast would not be needed.

I did 100 or so miles on my own today along some twisty roads and it seems to handle and steer far, far better. That is with brand new tyres (500 miles), new passenger side wheel bearing and toe in corrected.

......oh and some nice sunshine and little traffic.

 

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The ballast is to take into account the weight of the driver and or passenger in order the geometry is measured and set with this load in place ....

You have in effect adjusted the geometry and then loaded the car which take the geometry to a new datum point - ie different.

It should be rechecked with the appropriate ballast in place to represent you and the passenger.

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