Ian
It would be a good idea to trailer/tow your Sportster to an empty carpark if you can to test the self centreing.
With my initial set up, I had the opposite of self centreing - after 3/4 lock the wheels would self turn into full lock! - it was then a fight to physically turn the steering wheel to get the steering back to straight.
I really struggled with the Ford/Cabrio suspension to get any degree of self centreing - I still do not have much - it is better on one side than the other, and did not always appear to respond to changes in the way I expected.
My examiner said he did not expect a lot of self centering, but wanted to make sure it did not wind itself up ....... (I know why!).
Based on my experience I would not recommend trying to resolve this issue on test day, under pressure, and with limited time.
Of course you have the BMW/Sportster set up which is different, and there may be other voices who will tell you it is not so bad with the Sportster, and that you'll be fine to experiment with your suspension set up on the big day?
Mike
Quote:
Originally Posted by morris
I set up my wheel alignment rig today with thin nylon line and some 20mm round electrical conduit either end to hold the line level with the hub centres on all four wheels. My previous eyeballing attempt at getting slight toe out was actually pretty much what I'd aimed at and surprisingly close to equal both sides. A few further adjustments got me to 1 degree toe out either side which is a difference of 8mm between the front and rear of my 15" wheels. I don't really have anywhere (safe) to test self centring as my road is very narrow and you need to pick up a little speed to get it to work so I'm going to just leave as is and hope I have a helpful examiner as Jason did who'll let me make a minor adjustment on the day.
My rear wheels were both showing toe out too which is a no-no according to the Marlin advice. I've got 0.3 degrees (3mm difference) on the near side and 0.7 degrees (6mm difference) on the offside. From some rough calculations I need to find 3mm and 6mm of movement inwards at the rear trailing arm bush on either side just to pull the wheels slightly in past parallel. Marlin recommend 3mm to 5mm toe in on the rear. Question is, is this total toe or each side as I'm going to struggle given there is only one washer currently packing out my bushes on the inside, either side so not much room to play with. I don't think this is really an issue for IVA so I'm not going to start mucking around with it now.
I've also made good progress on my snagging list and now have no known issues. I just have to get the IVA manual up on a laptop in the garage and start working my way through it double checking everything in sequence.
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