Centering steering wheel - whats the art.

[greg]

Hi all,

 

I've invested in a detchable steering wheel bos (very very nice ...)

 

But!

 

The wheel is nolonger centered - I've tried loosening off bolts the UG next to the rack, but it does not seem to wish to move up /down. Should I now apply more brute force or is there an art to moving it up/down ?

 

Greg, Q 880 RAE (Green/Ali XF)

[HARRY BOY]

DONT FORGET THE CLAMP ON THE TOP AND THEN JUST TAKE YOUR TIME

 

HARRY BOY

[Peter Carmichael]

The bolt shank passes through a recess in the splined shafts. You may need to remove the bolt entirely.

[elie boone]

To center your steering wheel, take the clamp off under the master cil. then take the bolt out on the rack side and pull the steering bar out, if the bar does not come out directly use a scew driver but be gently !! put the wheels and steering wheel straigt and put the bar back in to place. refit the bolds and the clamp.

[greg]

Thanks gents,

 

I think I'll strip it and try a srew driver on the steering rack end, after having removed the bolt (which is a little stiff as its covered in crud from the xflow corrosion protection system.

 

Greg, Q 880 RAE (Green/Ali XF)

[Alex Wong1697456877]

You need to remove the bolts from the UJ then remove one end and get it as close as possible. Then fine adjustment can be done with the rod ends. As you toe one side in, toe the other out by the same unmber of turns - BUT make sure there's enough thread in the rod ends - they should always be roughly equal. If they're not, your coarse setting at the UJ is not as close to centre as possible.

[I reply to every thread]

& if you haven't done it already and have a VX - Disconnect the battery. The live pole on the starter is about 5mm from the steering column and will short to earth on the column. I learnt this the hard way by setting fire to my battery!

[Klaus Loske]

Hi,

 

you say, the steering wheel is not centered, so does that mean that when the wheels point straight, the steering doesn´t?

 

When I installed the quick out on my 91 De Dion, I found that there is not much you can do about the steering alignment. In fact, you can not change anything in the steering column setup... The steering wheel only fits one way on the steering spline. The spline is welded to the upper steering column, so nothing to adjust here. The upper column slides over the lower column and is clamped toghther... nothing you can do here except length adjustment. The lower column bolts to the joint which bolts to the steering rack. Since the column and the rack has some dents where the fixing bolts run through, you can do noting here as well...

 

So the only thing you can do is...

 

Move the steering rack left or right, but make shure that you are not fouling anything (Battery, Carbs or the exhaust on a LHD car).

 

Then adjust the rod ends to get a straight alined car.

 

On my car I only adjusted the rod ends a little bit and everything else worked out like magic!

 

Hope this helps...

 

Klaus

[I reply to every thread]

Klaus - you adjusted the tracking to get the steering wheel straight. Blimey!

 

LHD cars may be different but RHD cars have a universal joint in the steering colum at the base. Where the top column goes into the UJ there is effectively no adjustment but on the UJ to rack section there is complete 360 degree adjustment. You just pull the UJ off (Having taken out the bolt) and rotate the column until the steering wheel is where you want it.

[Klaus Loske]

You might be right with the lower UJ to rack mounting... I recently only undid the steering column to UJ bolt so I do not fully recall the other end of the UJ... Sorry if I talked rubbish...

 

The most delicate thing for me was to get the position of the steering rack right, because you have to make shure that the cycle wings are not fouling the bodywork on the l/r fully locked steering position.

 

If I recall correct this time (over 10 years ago) this is how I did it (this would also suit the flexible UJ position theory...).

 

Assemble the steering.

Turn left to right lock to check if the steering angle on the steering wheel is symmetric. I judged the steering wheel position against the lower edge of the dashboard.

If it is not symmetric, adjust the UJ to steering rack position.

 

Now you should have equal left/right track rod travel.

 

Now adjust the steering rack position so it is not fouling stuff in the engine compartment.

 

Now align the steering wheel to straight and adjust the track on the front wheels (track rods).

 

This should give you a well aligned steering which should not foul the bodywork.

 

Does this make sense?

 

Gruß

 

Klaus

[greg]

Thanks Gents,

 

I now have a result - A straight steering wheel (when the wheels are straight as well - how good is that).

 

My column has a small cut out for the bolt - so this end is fixed.

 

The rack end has a cut out that extends all the way round - hence this is the adjustable end.

 

Stripping the lot, a little clean with some parafin, and rebuilding with copper slip and voila !

 

Greg, Q 880 RAE (Green/Ali XF)