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Posted

Just have to find someone who is on board with older cars. The old man has had the same experience once or twice with his Austin Seven. He normally loves to argue the point but in this instance he just moves on haha.

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Posted

oh man, poor old mate doing that every day, with no PPE. His lungs must have been blacker than the underside of that car :lol:

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Posted
18 hours ago, kws said:

It's amazing what happens when you have the right tools.

Also, fuck Loctite, rust is the best bearing retainer compound.

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I am interested in this. I need to do the Avenger diff rear axle bearings as well. Never done it before so it would be good to hear any tips. Also any trouble getting the correct wheel bearings ?.

Posted
5 hours ago, Tiger Tamer said:

I am interested in this. I need to do the Avenger diff rear axle bearings as well. Never done it before so it would be good to hear any tips. Also any trouble getting the correct wheel bearings ?.

I'm not sure if the Avenger has the same style bearing, but I think they're much of a muchness. I haven't finished the job yet, i still need to replace the bearings, but I've been following this video as the setup on his Capri is the same as my Borg Warner diff

 

I got the bearing kit from Mytools on trademe, which sells the ABD kits https://www.abdgroup.co.nz/?action=autoinfo im quite lucky they do both front and rear bearing kits for the Aus Marina, for some reason.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Nominal said:

Pity they 'upgraded' Minor diff which has separate hubs and bearings from the axles ;)

Needed the beefy BW diff upgrade for the power from the super advanced OHC 1750 lump :lol:

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Posted

@kws something you mught find worth investing in is a scrub board. Its for setting toe as a dynamic measurement.

You drive across it and the top moves from the toe and shows a combined measurement. Often measured in feet per mile of sideways travel . Between 0 and 5 in is pretty good for most stuff.

They come up on trademe every now and again 

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Posted
3 hours ago, JustHarry said:

@kws something you mught find worth investing in is a scrub board. Its for setting toe as a dynamic measurement.

You drive across it and the top moves from the toe and shows a combined measurement. Often measured in feet per mile of sideways travel . Between 0 and 5 in is pretty good for most stuff.

They come up on trademe every now and again 

I was looking into these, but they had very mixed reviews and pretty spendy

https://www.gunson.co.uk/product/G4008/Trakrite-Wheel-Alignment-Gauge

Posted

As the original position of the steering wheel on the column and potentially the column to the rack? has been changed, I'd start by turning the steering wheel all the way one way then all the way to the other counting the turns as accurately as possible, return back half of these to centre the rack, often the tie rods are adjusted to the correct toe but the rack wasn't centred. Then I'd check the column to the indicator self canceling mechanism, the mini has a little T threaded into the side of the column, with the rack centred it should be midway between the plastic fingers on the indicator that cause the indicator to cancel, (indicator indexes into the outer column so it should only fit in one spot, but mine was deliberately sitting in the wrong spot so the indicators would work). Once all that's set I'd put the steering wheel so it faces straight ahead.

I didn't really get mine right till I'd done these steps but my mini had been completely apart.

I'm assuming the setup looks somewhat like the mini, but given BL was in peak cost saving mode it's probably a good assumption.

The ability to do a wheel alignment at home was great for me as I could tweak suspension settings without continually wasting money.

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Posted
On 01/11/2024 at 20:18, fuzzy-hair-man said:

As the original position of the steering wheel on the column and potentially the column to the rack? has been changed, I'd start by turning the steering wheel all the way one way then all the way to the other counting the turns as accurately as possible, return back half of these to centre the rack, often the tie rods are adjusted to the correct toe but the rack wasn't centred. Then I'd check the column to the indicator self canceling mechanism, the mini has a little T threaded into the side of the column, with the rack centred it should be midway between the plastic fingers on the indicator that cause the indicator to cancel, (indicator indexes into the outer column so it should only fit in one spot, but mine was deliberately sitting in the wrong spot so the indicators would work). Once all that's set I'd put the steering wheel so it faces straight ahead.

I didn't really get mine right till I'd done these steps but my mini had been completely apart.

I'm assuming the setup looks somewhat like the mini, but given BL was in peak cost saving mode it's probably a good assumption.

The ability to do a wheel alignment at home was great for me as I could tweak suspension settings without continually wasting money.

The marina, in my testing in Mexico, seems to be tracking bang on straight since the string alignment but yes I'll check lock to lock like you say and see where the rack is at.

The indicator cancelling in the Marina is done via the steering wheel which has tangs on the back which engage with a plastic collar in the column stalks. It's all the same thing though really.

Just ordered some fishing line, pretty keen to improve on the home alignment setup. It's a real handy tool to have. If I could afford and had the space, I'd love to have a 4 poster and alignment machine myself. I hate relying on others for things I could do.

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Posted

I'm sure you are already aware, but best practice is to start with both rods equal length and keep them equal.  ie for more toe in wind both out

 

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Posted
14 minutes ago, ajg193 said:

I'm sure you are already aware, but best practice is to start with both rods equal length and keep them equal.  ie for more toe in wind both out

 

That is what the book says to do

I have NFI how it currently is :lol:

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Posted
1 hour ago, kws said:

Just ordered some fishing line, pretty keen to improve on the home alignment setup. It's a real handy tool to have. If I could afford and had the space, I'd love to have a 4 poster and alignment machine myself. I hate relying on others for things I could do.

If you can find a place to repeatably attach them you can make 2 rods which are exactly the same length with notches at the same spots and it makes it much easier to setup your box.

As I couldn't measure straight front and rear of my tires I found 2 bits of square tube which telescope, a couple of bits of rod sharpened to a blunt point which I welded in the ends of the tubes. This makes a telescoping guage which I could measure. To make it work better I cut off a section of the larger tube and welded in a set screw. I measure the smaller of front or back of the tire (use grooves in the tire) set the set screw, then measure the larger, measure between the section with the set screw and the other outer tube and you have your overall toe. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rVtqgMGrEnPTWvsE9

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Posted
2 hours ago, fuzzy-hair-man said:

If you can find a place to repeatably attach them you can make 2 rods which are exactly the same length with notches at the same spots and it makes it much easier to setup your box.

As I couldn't measure straight front and rear of my tires I found 2 bits of square tube which telescope, a couple of bits of rod sharpened to a blunt point which I welded in the ends of the tubes. This makes a telescoping guage which I could measure. To make it work better I cut off a section of the larger tube and welded in a set screw. I measure the smaller of front or back of the tire (use grooves in the tire) set the set screw, then measure the larger, measure between the section with the set screw and the other outer tube and you have your overall toe. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rVtqgMGrEnPTWvsE9

I'll have to give the HPA video a watch later, thanks.

This is the one I watched that had a couple of lengths of just simple old PVC tube resting on axle stands, which is something I might give a try

 

Is your adjustable pole a fixed version of measuring with a tape measure from the inside tread blocks on one tyre to the other?

Posted

The things I would be concerned about with your string method is that it probably won't pick up if the car is skewed (back axle offset to one side or at an angle), it would also struggle if you just take book values for track widths instead of actually measuring the tracks.

I wonder if putting some coloured chalk dust on the tyres and then rolling them forward would leave a usable track on the ground for measuring the car?

Posted
13 minutes ago, ajg193 said:

The things I would be concerned about with your string method is that it probably won't pick up if the car is skewed (back axle offset to one side or at an angle), it would also struggle if you just take book values for track widths instead of actually measuring the tracks.

I wonder if putting some coloured chalk dust on the tyres and then rolling them forward would leave a usable track on the ground for measuring the car?

The book track width should be accurate enough if you measure from the center face of the wheel, because you only need to know the difference front to rear, the overall width doesn't actually matter. Obviously once you start changing things like hubs, camber etc, this may be less accurate. I believe that's the point in making the box with the tubes in front and behind the car, because then you know the box is square (the risk if the track measurement is wrong is that the lines won't be perfectly parallel). I guess the same applies to if the axle is askew, it won't matter as much with the box around the car.

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Posted
1 hour ago, kws said:

Is your adjustable pole a fixed version of measuring with a tape measure from the inside tread blocks on one tyre to the other?

Yeah more or less, just centre the steering before you use it, but I use the tread grooves rather than the tyre sidewall as it's easier to be accurate, it's the difference between the 2 lengths that matters so doesn't matter where you measure from as long as it's consistent. Basically made it because doing it with a tape was difficult and less accurate. The wheel plates would work the same way but this was free.

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