Well today I raised the front and checked the tie rods. On the face of it all seemed very tight indeed. However I thought I would just back off the lock nuts and check the actual tension. When I did it was clear there wasn’t any pre load or tension in the rods at all, on either side. There may have been tension originally when the car was built but that had now dissipated. This probably explains my original squeak!

So what to do? I thought it might be prudent to restore a little tension to improve the rigidity so jacked the car in the center such that the lower axle beam was spot on level (wheels off). I was quite impressed how straight the lower axle beam actually was. I then applied a little tension in the rods, about 1.5 turns of the nut each side. I have no idea if this is adequate but didn’t want to over stress anything. This was enough to changed the angle of the out board portion of the lower axle by around 0.2 degrees on each side.

So everything is nicely symmetrical with a little tension now. Previously the car drove very nicely anyway and this is only a minor tweak so hopefully it won’t change anything too much . A test drive tomorrow, we shall see how things go…. woohoo

Roger
2011 Plus 4