FAQs about Steering/Alignment

Steps to align your front end at home.

To: mm@lectroid.sw.stratus.com
Subject: Re: toe-in
Cc: wiemgan

ok, the car wanders.. so you have a mischeivous swede, sounds like another personal problem to me....

The brakes should work better, n'est pas? good. no one likes to have the rotors lock up on the hiway.

Wander wonder:

I have more wander now that I have my snow tires on. They are obviously a bit skinnier and have that gooshy tread. This contributes to the wander problem. The main cause I would think is still in the front alignment... just as a bicycle steering becomes unstable at slow speeds, so is your steering. Hopefully a propper alignment will bring the car to a more stable state. I have found that bushings and front-end "tightness" can cause a bit of play in the system which is speed dependent. at high speeds the system is pushed into it's operating state. at low speeds the slop emerges and gives you this weird feeling (or vice versa) you did have an alignment a while ago? but did you do any ball joint work or strut work since then? if so then you should re-align the puppy. I have the tools now (crude, but sufficient) to do the job. Perhaps an article to the net would be in order.

one of the most sensitive parameters to wander should be toe-in. if we assume that your car is reasonablly close on camber/caster (if it wasn't, the car would want to turn left or right while on a hiway.), the toe is the most probably cause.

Toe-in via `sighting' method:

I have a camber gauge (adjustable level with standoffs from Hallibrand- i.e. JCWitless for ~$40) which can double as a rim pointer. By that i mean a parallel visual line which i can draw by looking where the rim points... if toe-in is desired teh two wheels will look "in" at a point about 300 ft away.

the track on the front is about 4.5' = 1.38meters. If we add in the extended track (the level stands about two inches off of the outer rim lip) we get an effective track of 1.5 meters

toe-in is defined as a difference of rim separations from front to back so we can say that the 'angle-in' is... arctan(2xtoe-in/rim diam) = 1 degree.

this one degree of toe-in translates to a focus distance of about...

1.5m/sin(1) = 86 meters = 282 feet . So I just put a cone about 250 feet away (neighbors driveway) and I see if i can "sight" it in. This method can be very accurate.

Toe-in via relative measures:

There are other ways to determine toe-in... put a needle in the tread and tie a small plumb bob to it (both front tires)..mark where it falls on either side with chalk. then drive backwars one half diameter of your tires to move the plumb bobs to the "rear" of your tires and chalk that location. Drive away any take the difference of the marks to determine toe-in. semi accurate.

another way is to make a curtain rod with ruler marks on it. Or take a 2x4" with a stand up board on either end... just stand it up against the wheels while it is lying under the car and read off where the center line tread is front and back. semi-accurate.

best o luck.. if all else fails, just turn the steering arm nuts 1/2 turn at a time until the wander dies out. which way? i don't know. At every autoX I adjust to toe-out conditions by turning one adjustment arm 3 turns (1/8 toe-out) This gives me very good low speed turn-in but lots of wander and high-speed instability. At the track, 1/8" of toe-in is good.

Making the caster adjustable.

Date: Thu, 4 Jun 92 14:09:07 EDT
From: mm@abersoch.sw.stratus.com (Michael Mahler)
To: wiegman@orion
Subject: Making caster adjustable

Got an alignment today. Caster is at 2.1 (left) and 2.2 (right). Machined showed that 84-7 240's should have at LEAST 3.0 and MAX 4.0, NOMINAL 3.5.

This might explain that wandering that pisses me off so much.

My balljoints are already as far forward as they will go. I might have to go for the herminator mod and make longer holes in the a-arms. I have a theory that over time (potholes, bad roads) the a-armscompress a little, causing the the distance "X" (below) to get smaller and thus causing caster to get more negative:

 /..  |

//  | |

    |  //   | |

big bushing=|||     | |

    |<- X ->|O|

     ^---ball joint

I support this belief partially due to the fact that the a-arms appear to be rather soft compared to other components. The Bertone's a-arm gave it's life so the struts and ball joints would live. It wasn't eveny that hard a hit and the thing folded in HALF.

I am also considering expanding the holes in the big bushing "bucket" so it can be slid out (and natuarlly up a little due to the slant it's on). This will push the a-arm more forward. Also, I can expand the holes that the bolts on the top of the strut go through (the ones you adjust camber with).

The alignment guy felt that I would need to move the balljoint about 1/2" forward to make up that degree.

Toe-in/Toe-out

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 21:21:35 EST
From: Tim Takahashi <tim@me.rochester.edu>
To: swedishbricks@me.rochester.edu
Subject: Toe-in/toe-out

On Nov 5, 4:00pm, DJE8577@ritvax.isc.rit.edu writes:

> My 82 240 is experiencing a problem that someone may be able to help
> with. At or very near full front wheel lock the front tires will squeal
> even when moving forward at a snails pace.
> This has done this since I have owned the car.
> The alignment has been set twice since purchase to two different toe-in
> settings, both within the spec. (verified? With computer printout)
> Tie rods are both new
> Tire pressures have been varied.
> No detectable play in the front end.

I believe that John A's Volvo has more Ackerman than most.....

On Nov 5, 4:01pm, DJE8577@ritvax.isc.rit.edu writes:

> P.S. Already spoke with John Ackerman and he is not sure

Well... even if John A's Volvo has more, Volvo has a considerable amount of Ackerman built in. Every 2-series I've ever drive has steering that doesn't return when the wheels are turned to near lock, this is caused by the extreme toe-out of the wheels. The effects of the Ackerman vary with tire design... for instance, I had a set of Yoko A008's that were 100% unacceptible because I couldn't reverse and back out of a parking spot (in reverse the Ackerman gives major "toe-in") without having banging noises coming out of the front bushings (this went away with a the CH-51's).

Darryl, does your Volvo exhibit this?

What tires do you run? Even my "mushy" new Goodyear Aquatreds have never squealed even when pressed hard.

PS. I run the following alignment -

- front strut towers set to minimum positive camber (~0.25 degrees)

- 1/16" toe-in

tim

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Timothy Takahashi                            tim@fulcrum.me.rochester.edu
|
| Research Assistant                                                        |
| Dept. of Mechanical Engineering                                           |
| University of Rochester                                (716)275-4072(W)   |
| Rochester, NY 14627                                    (716)442-5832(H)   |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Date: Fri, 6 Nov 92 13:57:32 EST
From: hwiegman (Herman L Wiegman)
To: tim@me.rochester.edu, DJE8577@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Re: Toe-in/toe-out

Tire squeelin',

D> My 82 240 is experiencing a problem that someone may be able to help
D> with. At or very near full front wheel lock the front tires will squeal
D> even when moving forward at a snails pace.
D>Does anyone know what will cause a violation of the Ackerman Principle?

hmm. I am not familiar with this term "Ackerman".. but of course Tim hit it right on the head.. perhaps we should ask John A... :)

T> I believe that John A's Volvo has more Ackerman than most.....

Back to the problem.. I equate tire-squeeks with bad tire angles to the road surface. When one turns the old Volvo wheel over, one gets a pretty horendous positive camber angle on the outside cornering tire, even though you may have zero or negative camber in the "straight ahead" position. This is mainly due to the King Pin Angle (or strut tower to wheel axis angle). Since the Mac strut needs to lean over abit to clear the tire (nice wide 205/60... etc), there is little that can be done to the king pin angle to improve the wide camber variations over the range of steering input. BUT! if one cranks in tremendous amounts of caster.. namely the same amount as the king pin angle (about 10 degrees) then presto! no more variations in the camber of the front outside wheel!... unfortunatly one has to get a set of caster/camber adjustment plates and weld them on top of your strut tower to get the freedom of adjustment....

You two seem to believe that there are toe-in variations w/ steering. I know that if one snow plows the front wheels (toe-in) that they tend to fight each other... I did some sketches on a piece of paper which says that there are no significant toe-in changes through the range of steering input... Is this true?

I get some tire squeel every time I whip into my parking space at work in my 245. (the 1800 doesn't do it) I think it is due to the surface, old rubber ( 2 year old Conti CH-51's which are about shot now), and the camber angle which is about +10 degrees at full lock. (I have -1.5* of camber normally [straight ahead])

Tim, you got to see my tires now.. The Gilsasleds on the rear have worn normally, but the Ch-51's (the make believe H-rated tires w/ one side wall ply) are majorly worn on the outside, but not on the inside! I do run with 32 or 34 psi. I think that I got screwed on these Conti's because I did not get the stiff side walled H-rated tires.

Either way, I find two problems with my set up (lowered wagon).

1) due to my lower control arms being normally at an UPWARD angle instead of a downward angle, I get more positive camber in cornering conditions.. this has caused the more sever outside tread wear.

2) having a more stiff car tend to make boy racer out of you and you corner harder in 90% of the turns without thinking.. which tends to speed up the wear on the outer tread.

I may have the tires fliped inside to out to get the tread wear even.

I like discusions about the front end on Volvo's.. I am going to try out the camber adjustment plates from a Datsun 240-Z next year... In the mean time I put the snows on the wagon and pray that the 1800 doesn't get side swiped...

herm
hwiegman@ew0099.astro.ge.com

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 16:44:51 EST
From: wiegman (Herman L. N. Wiegman)
To: tim@me.rochester.edu
Subject: Re: Toe-in, Toe-out

>My brick has ample ackerman near lock - visually toe-ed out (1/2") to the point where the steering doesn't return from lock.

yes, this happens to me to, but not on my father's brick.. hmm.. then again, he has lots more negative camber, so perhaps the tires riding on the edge of the tread helps to give some slip so the tires can still unwind the steering wheel.

>Does your ride height make the tie-rods noticably non-parallel

yes, they are pointing up at the wheel end.. hence are at maximum extension (level) when the wheels go through a pot hole.

>this is some manifestation of what is commonly known as bump steer).

I thouht that bump steer was when the steering rack arms and the control arms had different geometry so that wheel arch would result in toe-in variations. I thought that most steering rack cars had no such problems because the rack arms where aligned with the control arms... arg! but not durring steering inputs.. then the arms move away from the ideal ark point... AH! I see, bump steer in corners is the result on all rack/pinion cars.

interesting. I will have to look at my geometries and see why the tires fight each other so much at turn in.. probably gets worse due to negative camber.. ie. the outside tire has more grip which to fight the other one with..

herm

Date: Fri, 6 Nov 92 13:57:32 EST
From: hwiegman (Herman L Wiegman)
To: tim@me.rochester.edu, DJE8577@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Re: Toe-in/toe-out

Tire squeelin',

D> My 82 240 is experiencing a problem that someone may be able to help
D> with. At or very near full front wheel lock the front tires will squeal
D> even when moving forward at a snails pace.
D>Does anyone know what will cause a violation of the Ackerman Principle?

hmm. I am not familiar with this term "Ackerman".. but of course Tim hit it right on the head.. perhaps we should ask John A... :)

T> I believe that John A's Volvo has more Ackerman than most.....

Back to the problem.. I equate tire-squeeks with bad tire angles to the road surface. When one turns the old Volvo wheel over, one gets a pretty horendous positive camber angle on the outside cornering tire, even though you may have zero or negative camber in the "straight ahead" position. This is mainly due to the King Pin Angle (or strut tower to wheel axis angle). Since the Mac strut needs to lean over abit to clear the tire (nice wide 205/60... etc), there is little that can be done to the king pin angle to improve the wide camber variations over the range of steering input. BUT! if one cranks in tremendous amounts of caster.. namely the same amount as the king pin angle (about 10 degrees) then presto! no more variations in the camber of the front outside wheel!... unfortunatly one has to get a set of caster/camber adjustment plates and weld them on top of your strut tower to get the freedom of adjustment.... You two seem to believe that there are toe-in variations w/ steering. I know that if one snow plows the front wheels (toe-in) that they tend to fight each other... I did some sketches on a piece of paper which says that there are no significant toe-in changes through the range of steering input... Is this true?

I get some tire squeel every time I whip into my parking space at work in my 245. (the 1800 doesn't do it) I think it is due to the surface, old rubber ( 2 year old Conti CH-51's which are about shot now), and the camber angle which is about +10 degrees at full lock. (I have -1.5* of camber normally [straight ahead])

Tim, you got to see my tires now.. The Gilsasleds on the rear have worn normally, but the Ch-51's (the make believe H-rated tires w/ one side wall ply) are majorly worn on the outside, but not on the inside! I do run with 32 or 34 psi. I think that I got screwed on these Conti's because I did not get the stiff side walled H-rated tires.

Either way, I find two problems with my set up (lowered wagon).

1) due to my lower control arms being normally at an UPWARD angle instead of a downward angle, I get more positive camber in cornering conditions.. this has caused the more sever outside tread wear.

2) having a more stiff car tend to make boy racer out of you and you corner harder in 90% of the turns without thinking.. which tends to speed up the wear on the outer tread.

I may have the tires fliped inside to out to get the tread wear even.

I like discusions about the front end on Volvo's.. I am going to try out the camber adjustment plates from a Datsun 240-Z next year... In the mean time I put the snows on the wagon and pray that the 1800 doesn't get side swiped...

Caster/camber/toe - what I did.

Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 23:58:28 -0500
From: bw738@cleveland.freenet.edu (Ed Wetherell)
To: swedishbricks@me.rochester.edu
Subject: caster/camber/toe - what i did

well, the alignment is done and now the 1800 is back on the road again!!!!! for thoes who wanted to know what others thought and what i did and how it works now, here goes..

the net's suggestions were basically what i had suspected, but with explaination!! i will attempt to paraphrase the input i recieved. thanks to john and herm for all their help!

camber: volvo for my car 0->+1/2 deg, ipd: -1/4->-1/2deg,

mine now: -0.8 (average).

comments: neg camber helps keep the wheels parallel to the ground in corners. the camber spec is usually only a factor in situations where a relatively low steering input is used. large amounts of camber greatly effect tire life, the tend to wear on the inside with large neg camber.

caster: volvo for me 0->+1 deg, ipd: +1.5->+2.5 deg,

now: +2.3deg (avg)

comments: caster helps maintain the neg camber throughout the turning arc of the front wheels. as the weel turns, the inherent king pin inclination tends to reduce the neg camber and in many cases leads to the loss of front traction in high steering input situations (ie the notable understeer on many volvo's)

heavily increased + caster makes the car difficult to steer, primarily in low velocity situations such as parking lots - at least for many of us ;-)

toe in: volvo:0->1/8 in ipd:1/32-1/16 me: 1/8

comments: toe in helps keep the car stable and going straight at speed. generally the faster one drives on the highway the more toe in is desirable. toe also effects the responsiveness of the steering. less toe will make the car more twitchy. my setting was jsut what things ended up as.. toe can be easily changed (at least for thoes of us w/ older bricks) and i wasn't too concerned about getting it set to my exact spec.. i would probably want closer to a 1/16 but i havn't changed it yet.

final comments:

beware that allignments to the front of a car only effect the andling (stickieness) of the front! radical allignment changes can unbalance (or seriously change the balance) of the car. by adding neg camber and pos caster a car that previoulsy understeered may oversteer excessively. the point being, be careful! expect your car to be different!

oversteer can mean a new relationship with your local body shop, ask many porsche owners!! the settings i chose reflect the way drive my car and how i want it to handle. i havn't had any adverse problems with my current setting. i don't think that the settering effort is to high in parkinglots, but some might.. also remember that allignments can be expensive!! some of the older cars may take 2 or more hrs to allign to a radical spec, so be careful!!

well, i've gotta run, hopefully i didn't mis-state any information..please contact me if you have any more coments/questions or if i really blew it somewhere...

keep 'em rollign

Steering rack information.

Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 19:11:20 EST
From: mm@lectroid.sw.stratus.com (Michael Mahler)
To: volvo-net@me.rochester.edu
Subject: Sttering Rack FYI's...

Here's some new knowledge I was forced to learn recently:

On early 240 racks (before '83?) you can adjust the rack pre-load byt adding or removing shims under the cover that holds the spring into the pressure "shoe", or whatever you want to call it.

You may have already known that...

You probably also know that there's no shims on the newer racks. However, what many people don't know is that on the newer racks (mine's an '84 240 and the New Car Features Manual says that in '84 the 240's started to use the same rack as 740's) there is a teflon insert that fits in the bottom of the "shoe" (you have to pull it all the way out to see it) simply by pulling out the old one and inserting a new one. 170k miles on the old one wore it down so it almost didn't matter that it was there or not thickness wise. This has the same effect as REMOVING shims on the older racks and is opposite what you'd probably want to do.

A new one costs $1.50 from Volvo.

Let you know how it goes when I get the part.

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 93 10:47:13 EST
From: wiegman (Herman L. N. Wiegman)
To: RAJAGOPA@SWMED.EDU
Subject: steering racks 200/700

Hari,

well after looking through the "steering" file it is more loaded with alignment stuff.. I'll send it along (it may be UUENCODED).

racks are regularly rebuilt and installed on older Volvo's. These units carry a one year warrentee and are easy to swap out by yourself.

Diagnosing a bad rack is simple.. but diagnosing a bad pump can be confusing, are you sure that your rack has "gone South?"

The following offer remanufactured racks...

ipd, Atlantic Ent., Meridian, Trollhatan Motors, Arrow Automoitve Erikssons Ind., CEW Import... (ipd gets theres from Meridian me thinks)

Personally I owe the folks at Atlantic a few orders so I recommend that Netters order from them (no obligation, but they are good and offer lower core charges to DIY folks like us netters).

> Atlantic Ent. Rt. 4, Box 394B, Loris, SC 29569
(803) 756-7565 ; pwr str. racks (~$250) core ~$100

one more thing.. sometimes the end links can be difficult to remove from the strut. I generally raise a floor jack below the joint to keep pressure on it while I break free the nut on top. Sometimes a "notch" can be cut in the top of the bolt in order to place a screw driver in it to prevent it from spinning while removing the retaining nut.

good luck,

Replacing the power steering pump.

From: Mike.Sestina@East.Sun.COM (Mike Sestina - Sun BOS Hardware)
Subject: Re: pwr steering pump?
To: wiegman@orion (Herman L. N. Wiegman)
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 13:05:25 EST

> can you give me some of the details of the rebuilt pump and
> what the probs were.. (installation.. was it a Volvo compatible pump?)

maybe this will be of use to others on the net so first let me be a bit more specific about my particular troubles which the replacement pump seems to have solved. my 240 had the GM Saginaw power steering pump.

when I would turn the wheel from lock to lock it woul dbehave like there was a random dead spot in the power assist. that is one finger turning the wheel easily then suddenly it would not turn further under finger effort alone. it would exhibit this random uneven assist through either lock. I think I mentioned the fluid in the old pump was dark, not familiar red ATF color so I tried flushing system before replacement but prblm returned.

replacement pump was a perfect fit, same numbers stamped on internal housing as on the old. I purchased at Auto Palace which is a NEngland autoparts chain, I called other places and those that carried one carried this brand I have the papers at home if you need the brand (I think it was A-1 re-manufacturers). Pump came with instructions but my Volvo shop manuals have a lotta pix which helped an awful lot and ieven shows how to rebuild the pump.

basically I losened the hi-pressure fitting. disconnected the return hose and drained into a suitable container. Slackened and removed the belt. four bolts (17mm?) held the pump reservoir to the mounting braket. once free I lifted it up out of the bracket then rotated the pump around hi pressure fitting to remove it from the hose. took it into the garage to transfer pulley and resevoir. pulley is pressed on and required gear puller and a hammer to tap it off. reservoir required removal of hi-press fitting then tapped off per shop manual and pump instructions. pump came with new hi-pres fitting, o-rings and simple tool to install pulley. I cleaned out reservoir and assembled per instructions which stressed cleaniness during assembly! I re-connect hi-pres line, fit pump back on engine bracket and re-fit belt, I used an old margarine tub to collect flush from still disconnected return line and plugged return orifice on pump. filled reservoir with DEXRON ATF per instructions and disabled the engine so to use starter to crank while swinging steering wheel back and forth until fluid flowing out of the return hose looked clean and red. then connected return ,top up reservoir, run engine and check for leaks, hi pres fitting required bit more snugging in my case to stop a persistent dribble

did I mention I purchased the rebuilt pump at less then one quarter what Volvo dealer wanted!

Troubleshooting loose steering problems.

From: David Gingold <gingold@think.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 92 23:29:57 EDT
To: swedishbricks@me.rochester.edu
Subject: loose steering thing (120/1800)

This weekend I took a closer look at the loose steering problem I've been having on my '72 1800ES, and I thought I'd post some more information.

The play really seems to be in the steering box. I can move the steering wheel back and forth a bit without moving the pitman arm, and I hear a little clunking going on inside the box when I do this.

I made another attempt at playing with the steering gear adjustment. I've been told to adjust this to be just tight enough so that the steering doesn't bind. But I couldn't actually get the screw tight enough to make it bind, or even to relieve all of the looseness. It feels like the screw is hitting a stop before it actually makes the gear tight enough. I have a feeling that the gears are just too worn down for tightening to be possible and that what I should do at this point is give in replace the box.

The good news is that when I got done with all of this I discovered that I had improved the situation substantially -- it's not quite so loose anymore, although I still would like it to be better.

The problem is a little less urgent now, but if anybody would like to sell me a better steering box (or can name a good source), let me know. Maybe I'll poke around for a parts car this summer.

Thanks everyone who has been sending advice!

-dg

Date: 16 Jun 1992 14:29:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: "John W. Retallack" <JWRPPH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu>
Subject: Re: loose steering thing (120/1800)
To: wiegman@orion

Herm Wiegman writes:

>David, et al.,
>This weekend I took a closer look at the loose steering problem I've been
> having on my '72 1800ES, and I thought I'd post some more information.
>My steering box also exhibites a "clicking" noise as I shift the wheel
>left and right. The linkage is good, and the steering is stable, but does
>have that vague feeling in the middle. I did tighten the box some, but had
>to back off due to the wheels sticking in place (the front end was jacked
>up so the wheels had free motion).

Have someone else turn the steering wheel and listen closely. See if you can tell where it comes from... exactly. Watch the sub-frame member the steering box bolts to for "flexing" under load. (For this test the wheels should be on the ground). Mine was rusted and had to be repaired. I've heard of others having the same problem. Not a difficult fix.

ALSO: examine the lower A Frame bushing mounting points. There is a long bolt which goes thru the bushing, passes thru a "tube" which is spot-welded to to the front sub-frame. The spot welds often break loose. Bill Webb's book covers this, a relatively common problem, I hear.

RE: the vague feeling in the middle... I assume this means it wanders while driven? Wheel mis-alignment will cause "wandering." Also bushings may feel good but have enough slop to cause the problem. Especially if all bushings are just a little loose. Also loose wheel bearings do it. Sometimes it is not a question of fixing just one thing.

>The good news is that when I got done with all of this I discovered that I
> had improved the situation substantially -- it's not quite so loose
>Ditto.. have you learned anything new? Who had those VSA tech reprints?
>Mike? John? Marv? (I should get myself a copy someday.)

I'll check the reprints and get back to you, perhaps tomorrow or Thursday. I know there are several references to steering repairs.

>Anything in there on the steering box? Can we somehow clean the box out and
>adjust it so it is off center (to avoid the worn spot?). I have only been a
>member of VSA for 1.5years and I have not come accross a good article on this.

No... I would not recommend setting the box off center. I'm not certain but I think that the the steering ratio is progressive. There are many "steering" articles in the Tech Reprints, too many! *

Help needed on handling problem.

Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 05:33:02 PST
From: John_E_Werner.Wbst311@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Help needed on handling problem....
To: RAJAGOPA@swmed.edu

>When i turn the wheel fully and then accelerate, car slides every whichway.
>I presume this is because of the rear wheel drive , even so, it should not

It is probably not because it is rear wheel drive. A Stock Volvo will go straight under full power in a tight corner. I am assuming you turn the wheel while stopped, and then stand on the gas. Even so, you should start going straight if everything is ok with the car.

What you want to check is the rear suspension bushings. Especially the ones on the Panard rod (the rod that is parrellel to the axle and connects the axle to the body). If the car has any significant mileage or age on it (What model/year is it?), it is very likely all of the rear bushings have disintigrated.

What's so special about the pannard rod bushings? Well, the panard rod locates the axle from side to side on the car. It keeps the axle from sliding left to right. If the bushings are shot, there is play in the panard rod and thus the axle is allowed to move freely from side to side. This will tend to make it feel like the back end has a mind of its own while cornering. [Pro Rallyist Dan Theil once lost a panard rod on his Volvo in a pro rally. That cost him several minutes, even though he did not do anything about it until a service. According to him, the car became very sensitive in the tail, and was hard to drive. I have only had the priviledge of having bad panard rod bushings on my 122. Still, it was interesting.]

Suspension Tuning.

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 11:33:44 PDT
From: megatest!bldg2fs1!sfisher@uu2.psi.com (Scott Fisher)
To: anabhan@midway.uchicago.edu
Subject: Suspension Tuning 101

> P.S. Last night I drove a really nice 764T with the IRS. It put power down
> out of corners much better than the 740's live axle, but it was too soft.
> Lotsa understeer and it dove like frisky porpoise under braking. Would the
> IPD bars help?

They ought to help with the understeer, but not with the dive. That's a function of suspension geometry and spring rates at either or both ends of the car.

If you want to fix understeer, here's a list in increasing order of cost:

1. Pump the front tires higher. Cost: Free. This will reduce the amount that the tire rolls over under cornering loads. If you drove this car on a dealer's lot, it's probably 20 to 25 pounds too low all around - they go for that boulevard ride every time. Start with the maximum printed on the sidewall and move up in 2-lb increments from there till you can't observe a change in the car's behavior (or you dislike the way the car behaves), and then back off two pounds.

Tradeoffs: On the plus side, this will sharpen steering response even at small movements of the wheel (say, tracking a lane on the freeway). It might also help fuel economy, but not as much as pumping all four tires up to the higher pressure will. On the minus side, it will make your car ride a little more roughly, and can increase noise and feedback from the steering wheel. In a small open sports car, these are all either features or no-ops (you can't hear road noise when the wind is whipping past your ears at 65 mph); in a luxo-Brick full of crabby in-laws, well, you be the judge. :-)

2. Add negative camber. Cost: Depends. If you've got good tools, you can do this yourself for only labor and (maybe) some shims. Negative camber is when the tops of the tires are closer than the bottoms (so that they look knock-kneed from the front). Not all cars are tunable for more negative camber, and not all manuals tell you how to do it, but keep reading. In a pinch, you can usually have a good shop do it for you for under $50 per "axle".

How much to add depends on your abilities, budget, and intended use. If you are approaching this systematically with sweat equity and little capital, try 1/4-degree increments till you like the way the car drives. If you're approaching this with a big budget and no patience, dial in all the negative camber the car will stand and then see how many weeks it takes to wear the insides of your tires down to the cords. You will feel a remarkable difference with as little as 1.2 degrees of negative camber.

Trade-offs: What this does is change the static angle of the front tires so that when the chassis leans in a corner, the tires are closer to vertical. On the plus side, this keeps them more flat on the ground and the superior traction this affords (compared to being slightly tilted) makes them stick better. On the minus side, if you spend most of your time just motoring around town, you will wear out the inside edges of your front tires because they're tilted when the car goes straight ahead. And the cost is about $50 for most good shops, but of course this jumps dramatically if you end up wearing out a set of tires in 6000 miles instead of 30,000.

3. Add anti-roll bars. This will have a far greater impact on the way you perceive your car's handling at anything greater than parallel-parking speeds than anything else I've discussed so far. We've been through them several times on the list, so the quick recap is that an anti-roll bar lifts up the inside tire, which makes the car want to fall back down onto it. This keeps the car flatter in a corner, but it reduces the overall downforce on that end of the car (because it's lifting the tire, and thanks to Phil Ethier of the britcars list for that analogy). There's also some weird stuff that happens on some cars when you mix anti-roll bars with (um) overly conservative front suspension geometry, but as a general rule, add a stiffer bar to the end *opposite* from the one you're having trouble with. If the car plows, stiffen the rear; if the tail wants to come out, stiffen the front.

Trade-offs: This has no effect on linear bumps -- meaning that on the one hand, the car won't handle any stiffer when you hit an expansion strip, but on the other, it won't resist dive and squat (the way the nose comes up like a powerboat when you tromp on the gas). It also is the most expensive item so far, running up to a couple hundred dollars for sway bars at both ends of new cars. Note also that you will almost certainly want to add a bar to both ends, and that if so you will either want to trust your bar supplier or do a lot of reading and calculation of load rates.

3a. You can also tune anti-roll bars by bushing material. Most stock anti-roll bars use soft rubber bushings that offer a lot of compliance to light loads. Bushings of polyurethane, Carsan, or nylatron (different varieties of synthetics with differing degrees of stiffness) will reduce anti-roll bar preload. Solid metal bushings will eliminate preload, but will be VERY noisy and will ultimately grind your anti-roll bar into powder unless lubricated every time you drive the car. This is not much incremental effort for a race team, which might well lap the valves every race, but it's probably more than anyone but John Werner wants to do on this list. Trade-offs: Cheap, but a fair amount of labor; can be used to fine-tune existing bars. You can also tune the end link bushings so that the bar doesn't hook up for the first few fractions of an inch of roll, for instance, which can change the response curve of the anti-roll bar. There's a lot you CAN do: the hard part is deciding what you SHOULD do. :-)

That's all for now. Hope this is beneficial to some of you!

--Scott

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 12:38:28 PDT
From: werner.wbst311@xerox.com
Subject: Re: Suspension Tuning 101
To: megatest!bldg2fs1!sfisher@uu2.psi.com

>2. Add negative camber....
>What this does is change the static angle of the front tires
>so that when the chassis leans in a corner, the tires are closer to
>vertical.

The effects of negative camber are really only helpful in highspeed, low steering angle corners. If the wheel are turned sharply, the camber has little to do with the angle of the tire to the ground. CASTER now comes into effect, and adding positive caster can help slow speed, high steering angle corners at the cost of heavyness of steering.

BTW: Many new cars have no adjustments for Caster and Camber. The struts only fit one way and you can not adjust them. It makes life for many of us 'hot rodders' a little more of a pain. It also can get into some big problems when the frame gets bent.

>3. Add anti-roll bars.

Consider the trade offs very carefully when you make the wheels non-independent from side to side. For race tracks, a big, solid bar is great, but it hinders when the going is rough. Most people setting up for off-road (backwoods rallying) actually go to smaller sway bars. This allows the tires to stay on the ground over the really rough stuff. A big sway bar is no help when your tires are off the ground. (The same goes for steering when the car is off the ground, but that is a rally story for another time....)

4. Springs

Stiffer springs will help the car from leaning nearly as much in the corners. The drawbacks are that ride quality goes down as you start to feel every pebble in the road. You may also loose some ground clearance if the springs are also designed to lower the car. (Can you afford that extra 1"?) On the other end of the spectrum, there are also springs which will raise the car. (Get a hold of the Heavy Duty, Volvo R-Sport front springs for a 140...). Both lowering and raising will due interesting things to the suspension geometry and may introduce their own problems.

The best solution in the springs department for street use are Progressive springs. Typically, at stock weight, the car is a normal ride high and will have a slightly softer feel. When you load it up, the springs get stiffer and the car will sink less then before. This even helps in corners where body roll is trying to make one side of the car sink.

--John

Date: Sun, 22 Aug 93 21:41:42 EDT
From: Tim Takahashi <tim@me.rochester.edu>
To: megatest!bldg2fs1!sfisher@uu2.psi.com (Scott Fisher),swedishbricks@me.rochester.edu
Subject: Re: More About Suspensions

On Aug 22, 3:58pm, Scott Fisher wrote:

} Subject: More About Suspensions
} > Oh oh! I can hear Tim grumbling in the background already.
} Um, I'm *not* screwed up on this.
} } 1. The fact that there are springs at both ends of the cars means that
} a transfer of weight at one end implies (through the car's frame)
} a transfer of weight at the other. In practice, this means that
} adding an anti-roll bar to only one end of the car will *still*
} affect the opposite end's grip, because the curve of roll angle to
} vehicle speed will be different due to the change in front-rear
} weight transfer during cornering.
} 2. Stiffer springs (or anti-roll bars) will change....everything about
} the way it handles.

"Doc" Tim will now grumble....

Scott is correct. In fact the suspension geometry (which controls the effective "roll centers" of the chassis) is very different between 140/160 series cars and 240/260 series cars. The 7xx/9xx cars are equally different depending on the rear suspension configuration "Larsson" axle vs. IRS.

Now, from experience, I can tell you a bit about the 200 series. I've driven many of them, and have found the subjective handling to be all over the place - some are crisp, others mushy, some understeerers some oversteerers. The differences boil down to a few basic things :

1. Tires (and wheels)

2. Dampers (Shocks)

3. Anti-roll bars

4. Springs

5. Alignment

>From experience, you can run 1/16" toe-out on a 200 series without effecting straight line stability. In fact, I'd really reccomend it.

Tires, well enough has been said, but I can compare two cars :

1979 4-door sedan, stock springs, 15x7" rims, Bilsteins, IPD bars,

205/60HR15 Continentals

1985 Turbo wagon, IPD lowering springs, turbo alloys, Bilsteins, IPD bars,

205/60HR15 BFGoodrich Comp T/A HR4

The turbo wagon should have sharper turn-in and reflexes, but the sedan has more grip and sharper turn-in.

Suspension :

1987 4-door sedan, stock springs, stock rims, stock shocks, stock bars

205/70HR14 Continentals

1978 245DL wagon, stock springs, stock rims, Bilsteins, stock bars

205/70HR14 Continentals

The sedan understeers, the wagon oversteers. Shocks or align?????

Align :

My 1979 v6 sedan. before align : 5/16" toe-out

after align : 1/16" toe-in

Before has sharper turn in, after has softer turn-in.

Of course, most cases are comparing apples and oranges, for as Scott has pointed out. EVERYTHING makes a difference. In the case of the 87 sedan, which my father drives, it baffles me why it understeers so much (yet with him at the wheel, wears tires evenly). I'll have to drag it up to Rochester and have the alignment checked out my my mechanic.

Grumbling over.....

Replacing the wheel bearings is pretty easy.

From: alfred@nyquist.bellcore.com (Alfred Kwan 21342)
Subject: Re: Front wheel bearings
To: ROSSE_J@gold.colorado.edu (Joe Rosse, U of Colorado College of Business)
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 09:22:23 -0500 (EST)

> Replacing the wheel bearings is pretty easy. Trickiest part is finding
> a suitable drift to remove the races. Oddly enough, I've often found that
> a hammer handle (the "bottom" end, opposite from the head) is often the
> right size, and being wood, is fairly safe. Or take a brass punch and
> go lightly on opposite sides.

Yes, I think the hardest part is the remove the old races. On some cars, there is no room for a drift on the back side to push the old race out. I just use a screw driver or a punch and pound them out.(a little at a time and go around the circle) I think some puller can do this easier. I use a hydralic press to install the new races. It is one of those $99 job. Between a transmission rebuilt, many U-joints, and wheel bearing jobs; it paid for itself already. I just use the nearest size 1/2" socket (a little smaller) with a short extension for a drift. If I have time, I put the races in the freezer a bit earlier, not really necessary. With a light coat of oil, the races go back in very easy. I have done it without a press also.

> The last time I repacked bearings I decided to be compulsive and follow
> the manual. As I recall it recommended tightening the nut to 10 ft-lbs.
> This seemed WAY too tight to me, so I followed my usual practice of
> spinning the wheel and tightening the nut until all free play is gone;
> you can feel the wheel slowing just a bit. Then tighten a bit more if
> needed so that the castle nut lines up with the hole for the cotter pin.
> This seems to have worked--does anyone else see a problem with this
> procedure? Seems to me that following the directions would lead to
> excessive wear on the bearings.

I do the same.

I always check for free play and only tighten it so I don't feel any more free play. I usually over tighten just a bit to seat the bearing first and back it off. With new bearings, I usually recheck them for free play after a few days.

> P.S. A minor tale of Volvo safety: My wife skidded in a recent snow/ice
> storm and high-centered our 245 on a high curb (used to separate a limited
> access highway from a frontage road; therefore unusually high). When I
> got there I found the car had slid all the way onto the curb, with the
> rear end resting on the (IPD) sway bar mount and the left tire off the
> ground. The front tires were on the ground, but the car was resting
> very firmly on the A-arms. I managed to extricate the rear end, but
> couldn't get the front end up high enough with my floor jack to
> clear the tires. While I went to call AAA, the police towed the car.:(
> But when I picked it up at the impound lot, it seemed to drive fine,
> and the alignment shop reported that all it needed was an adjustment.
> I found this amazing, considering that the A-arms stopped the car
> (abruptly, my wife reports), and with a sideways impact on them. Good
> news is that my wife, who only days ago was asking me not to go to
> any more BMWCCA driving courses, is now saying that maybe she could
> have controlled the slide better if she had gone!

I used to commute between New York City and New Jersey (60 miles one way). I hit all kinds of mega size pot holes. With over 170K miles on my 242GT, collected many nails on my tires but I never had a broken ball joint. The front end is really built on a 240.

Alfred

Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1993 10:02:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: V093P9MD@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: Re: Front wheel bearing
To: swedishbricks@me.rochester.edu

The manual syas that one should tighten the nut a little (less than 10 ft. LBS), and then back off to the nearest position that will allow the cotter pin to be inserted. I couldn't use my torque wrench at the time since I didn't have a large enough socket, so I used a large adjustable plumber pipe wrech to tighten the nut just a little. It seems to work well enough. No free play, but not too tight either.

Happy Motoring,

Andre'

From: marka@sol.metaware.com ()
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 10:58:50 -0800
To: swedishbricks@me.rochester.edu
Subject: Front Wheel Bearing Followup (long)

Thanks to all those who advised; I finished up the messy job this morning and I think the noise is gone. Some notes follow.

Someone asked about how you diagnose bad bearings. It's happened to my Scirocco once and the 244 twice, and each time the noise was a drone that got worse in turns at high speed. If it gets loud on a left turn and almost disappears on right turns, the right bearing(s) are probably bad, and vice versa. It's hardly noticeable on straightaways. It sounds a little bit like tire noise but the behavior on turns distinguishes it. Your mileage may vary; I suppose if it were really bad there might be a knocking noise but this never happened on my cars.

Some minor notes on the procedure:

1. 240s from 1981 on don't have the thrust washer, according to Haynes. Instead they have a castle nut with more slots.

2. I didn't have a socket big enough for the castle nut so I couldn't use the adjustment procedure described in Haynes and a 1975 official Volvo manual. This involves torquing the nut to 50 ft-lbs then backing off 1/3 turn. Instead I torqued the nut with a wrench (probably using only half the recommended 50 foot-lbs), backed off the nut 'til it was loose, then hand tightened it so it just barely contacted the bearing. I'm not sure this is really correct but the hub turns freely and isn't rattling around.

Andre' says to torque the nut a little (less than 10 ft-lbs), then back up to the nearest position that allows you to insert the cotter pin. I may try that when I get a chance.

3. Getting the outer races out of and into the hub is a bit tedious without a press but not hard. I ended up using a discarded nut driver as a punch and lots of light taps with a hammer.

Power steering balance.

From: cblmarti@ihlpo.att.com
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 93 15:51 CST
To: att!DEBOER@sask.usask.ca, att!memsthd@prism.gatech.edu, att!swedishbricks
Subject: Re: Power Steering Balance

Mike and Dirk,

Our '82 244DL had a problem with the power assist balance and we paid the garage to do the job (and hour or two I don't recall). An easy way to diagnose if your rack needs to be balanced is to stop your car on level ground and turn your wheel to the left and to the right. If the resistance is less when you turn the wheel one direction then your power assist to the rack is probably out of balance. The dealer can do the job, as well as yourself with the proper motivation and tools, as it is a job of adjusting checking and so forth. My local dealer didn't have any equipment to tell him if the power assist were balanced or not. It was a matter of doing it and then checking the adjustment.

The car would checked out on the rack as being right on the money for the alignment settings, but it would drift left of center if not held in check since the power steering wanted to balance itself (kinda)... The Midas pads were sticking in the calipers which caused a pull in the opposite direction when braking. Eliminate the Midas pads and mysteriously that braking pull disappeared! I think the ipd PBR's our 240 likes much better than the Midas pads. Another thing that was working against us was a bad pair of Dunlop HR4 tires. (The predecessor to the D60-A2 I think.) I have had two different pairs of HR4s on the car and they both ended up being really crappy tires in the long run (25K mile life for a 40K mile tire). I don't like Dunlop for this reason. They were relatively good tires as far as dry traction went but they were really bad in even light snow and moderately better in the wet than the Michelins that came on the car. Since they are no longer made all this is really mute. Guess I need that Nomex underwear someone mentioned for voicing my opinion.

Can power steering lines be repaired?