Max Rebo Posted May 22, 2006 Share Posted May 22, 2006 Is it possible to adjust the steering wheel centering without messing with the overall alignment? I'm thinking either a slight tie rod adjustment. Would adjusting the tie rods affect camber or toe? One fix for minor adjustment on my former VW was to remove the steering wheel and rotate it just a hair... it mounted on splines, so fine adjustment was possible in a pinch. That's not really the correct way, but my dealer has attempted to align the car 3 times and the steering wheel is still slightly off-center. Originally, it was off-center to the right. Now, it seems to be slightly off-center to the left. I might go to a different shop to have them try... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sgt Posted May 22, 2006 Share Posted May 22, 2006 If you adjust the tie rods you always have the possibility to throw the toe out. The problem with moving the steering wheel is you may damage the airbag wiring Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenonk Posted May 22, 2006 Share Posted May 22, 2006 Is it possible to adjust the steering wheel centering without messing with the overall alignment? I'm thinking either a slight tie rod adjustment. Would adjusting the tie rods affect camber or toe? One fix for minor adjustment on my former VW was to remove the steering wheel and rotate it just a hair... it mounted on splines, so fine adjustment was possible in a pinch. That's not really the correct way, but my dealer has attempted to align the car 3 times and the steering wheel is still slightly off-center. Originally, it was off-center to the right. Now, it seems to be slightly off-center to the left. I might go to a different shop to have them try... Similar PM that I got and here's the answer I gave and that I use for myself (and you should adjust from the tie rods and not the steering wheel). You dont want your steering rack to be able to max out one end than the other. It's possible that your dealership was just trying to eye-ball it and kinda worked with it.. Professional race prep shops would use turning plates and among other things to get it to align. This is the PM: Hi Keefe, I was reading thru some old posts about the steering wheel off center fix. You mentioned that you had a guide to doing your own alignment. Could you send it to me if you still have it? Thanks, Jon It's really adjusting the toe of the front end.. You will need two pieces of the straightest 2x4s of the same length that you can get and something to square them up to the tires. I normally make an L shape with the 2x4s so that the lower portion of the L is actually lined up on the back of the tire.. the upright portion of the L is laid flat on the level ground along the outside edge of the tire, so it would look something like this: (front of car) |[]-------[]| -- ..........-- the green is your tie-rod/steering rack the red is your 2x4s that you built so that they are your right angles you can ignore those "....." (I couldnt space it out so that the diagram would look correct). Most of the time, I just tell people that this is the easy fix and to run zero toe up front. If you want to do some your own custom toe alignment, then you need to do some more math and use geometry and trig to figure out what you need (not that hard either if you made your 2x4s long enough to work with common trig numbers). But to have zero toe AND center your steering wheel, you would do the following: if your steering wheel is pointing to the left and the car is going straight: You need to shorten the right tie rod and lengthen the left tie rod. if your steering wheel is pointing to the right and the car is going straight: You need to shorten the left tie rod and lengthen the right tie rod. "so how do I know how much to lengthen or shorten on each end?" you just move them at equal distance to retain the same toe.. now, if you royal screwed up the measurements, no big deal, that's why you have those L brackets. You slowly adjust the tie rods until you get what you need to make the steering wheel straight, it may take you a couple of times, but you will get it right.. normally it takes me about 3 to 5 tries to get it right because every car is different with the number of turns for the tie rods to make it move X amount of degrees to make the steering wheel go straight. If you want get zero toe and not have any tire wear, you want to measure (tape measurer is fine) the front end of the L bracket from left to right(called measurement "A") and the rear end of the L bracket (called measurement "B"). It should be something like this: |<------A------->| |[] []| |<------B------->| if "A" > "B" = it means you have toe out, the greater the difference, the more toe you have out if "A" < "B" = it means you have toe in, the greater the difference, the more toe you have in if "A" = "B" = congratulations, you have zero toe. just keep adjusting the tie rods until you get the measurements correct. Once you have the steering wheel centered, adjusting toe will be easy because you are either adding length or shortening BOTH rods to retain the straightness of the steering wheel. "Is this all accurate?" It's only as accurate as you make it. I am only giving you the essence of it. You can find a billion ways to really do an alignment on your own car (google has a lot to offer from race cars and what race teams do and they are just as accurate down to 0.001" precision, our race team gets it down to the 0.01 precision for a lot of our setups). I dont even bother going to the alignment rack and use a hunter machine anymore because I just saved so much money from going there and I make my own tools at home (from camber readers, toe and caster readers, and my race team all chipped in and got corner scales for the car for corner balancing). Hope that helps. Keefe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j255c Posted August 4, 2006 Share Posted August 4, 2006 i just got my car aligned and the alignment tech told me its impossible to make a car have zero toe on both sides. Its either 1 1 or -1 -1 or 2 2, anywho my steering wheel now is to the left to track straight, when i installed my springs myself, without alignment it was perfectly centered until i got it aligned HELP! 06 TB EVO IX SE stock turbo monster subaru hater Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSiWRX Posted August 5, 2006 Share Posted August 5, 2006 One fix for minor adjustment on my former VW was to remove the steering wheel and rotate it just a hair... it mounted on splines, so fine adjustment was possible in a pinch. I tried this on my LGT - to offset it to the other side by just one spline. It turned out that one spline moved the wheel just a little too far off to the other side, so it then became biased towards that side, instead. The problem with moving the steering wheel is you may damage the airbag wiring ^ Agreed, the possibility of damaging the airbag wiring/connectors is there ( as is the possibility of screwing anything else up when doing any DIY work ) - however, this is highly unlikely based on our clock-spring setup, and as long as decent care is exercised during wheel removal ( i.e. not just "ripping it off" He-Man style ). I've documented DIY steps here: http://legacygt.com/forums/251590-post36.html <-- I love Winky, my "periwinkle" (ABP) LGT! - Allen / Usual Suspect "DumboRAT" / One of the Three Stooges '16 Outback, '16 WRX, 7th Subaru Family Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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