4 wheel alignment - what settings?

moggy · Post by **moggy** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 8:17 pm

I've got to take my car in for 4 wheel alignment as there's something wrong with the setup. It oversteers going round left hand bends and understeers going round right hand bends. It's had a smack on the front left hand side so I'm afraid that might of knocked something out of kilter. I've had the tracking done but that hasn't fixed it, so I'm getting more serious and going for the 4 wheel alignment. However, they're going to ask me what the setting should be, so does anyone know?? e.g. toe in (front and rear) distance between wheel centers (front to back), camber, etc??

roger · Post by **roger** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:27 pm

Moggy

I haven't had the 914 done but when I took the Merc in they said they had all the settings for all the cars. Have you asked the aligment company if they have the relevant data?

moggy · Post by **moggy** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:11 pm

Yes, the guy said the 914 is not on his system.

I've just come back from doing some rudementary measurements and it seems that the left front wheel centre is 1.5cm's closer to the rear wheel centre than the right side. It looks like the smack has pushed the left front wheel towards the rear of the car by 1.5cm's. Bugger!

I'm still going to take the car in and get it verified with more accurate measurements than my methods, so if anyone has the settings it'd be great.

roger · Post by **roger** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:24 pm

I've put a post on the Yahoo 914 group to see if anyone knows - I'll let you know the response.

moggy · Post by **moggy** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:01 pm

Cheers

porker914 · Post by **porker914** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:19 pm

Moggy,
Sorry the alignment is that bad! I have looked in the genuine workshop manual and they state the following

wheel base 2,450mm

front wheel camber 0±20'

front wheel caster 6°±30'

rear wheel toe in 0°±15' per wheel

camber when empty -30'±20' (max diviation left to right = 20')

hope this helps?

David

moggy · Post by **moggy** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:29 pm

porker914 wrote:Moggy,
Sorry the alignment is that bad! I have looked in the genuine workshop manual and they state the following

wheel base 2,450mm

front wheel camber 0±20'

front wheel caster 6°±30'

rear wheel toe in 0°±15' per wheel

camber when empty -30'±20' (max diviation left to right = 20')

hope this helps?

David

No probs David, you weren't to know. Without driving it round it's difficult to detect and obviously I bought it from you without you having driven it. From the surface the crash damage didn't look much, but having looked deeper I can see the inner wing is crumpled, which has caused the left front to shift towards the rear by 15mm. I have no regrets, it's a solid '14 otherwise. I just need to find someone to repair the damage.

Does anyone know of a workshop that can fix this i.e. has a jig for a 914?

Nige · Post by **Nige** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:38 pm

before you go and spend too much wonga, double check your tyre pressures and condition/matching tyres

moggy · Post by **moggy** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:45 pm

Nige wrote:before you go and spend too much wonga, double check your tyre pressures and condition/matching tyres

Thanks Nige but I'm way past that

I've checked the pressures, swapped the wheels for the rears, swapped tyres and wheels with other sets I have (even fronts from my beetle). Had no effect.

I've now measured the wheelbase, the right is spot on 2450mm the left is 2435mm. I re-measured a number of times and the results stay the same. The next step is to measure various suspension points tonight to see if it's the chassis that's to blame or the suspension arm. I'm hoping it's just a bent arm... but I'm not hopeful

Nige · Post by **Nige** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:47 pm

no worries, apologies if I was just stating the obvious, its what I'm good at

moggy · Post by **moggy** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:52 pm

Nige wrote:no worries, apologies if I was just stating the obvious, its what I'm good at

Nige, believe me 'missing' the obvious is what I'm good at

but in this case I've covered all the basics. I'll see how the measurements go tonight

(fingers crossed)

porker914 · Post by **porker914** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 3:26 pm

moggy,
Try some of the adverts in the back of 911 world magazine as they have done various articles on jigging 911's and I would think that they would also have the jigs for a 914 but I would not expect it to be all that cheap!!

Alternatively why not buy the blue 914 I have as I am now trying to sell literally the body shell. It is extremely solid and needs no welding and has not signs of crash damage!!! Cheeky to suggest but you never know!

Regards

David

moggy · Post by **moggy** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 9:04 am

Good news

I spoke to a very nice bloke, Mike Caravisili, about jigging and whether he could do such work. He suggested to check that the ball-joint hadn't been 'knocked back' in the A-arm first. Good job he did as when I checked it it was this that was at fault. Aparently when the wheel hits a kerb at speed it's common that the ball joint gets puched back in the A-arm, towards the back of the car. When I took the damaged one with me to pick up a good secondhand one from him he said it was the worst he'd ever seen. Whoever hit that curb in the US in this car sure did it at speed

Anyway, lesson learnt.... thank god it wasn't as serious as body jigging

porker914 · Post by **porker914** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:01 pm

glad to hear its an easy job so you will be back on the road to enjoy this good weather!!!!

David