Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Wheel alignment.

What is needed to do an alignment on a 3 Wheeler? We are getting the Steering Conversion kit for Molly's 2013, and I don't see anything in the instructions that I couldn't do myself. Except the alignment. If I could find a way or a place to do that I think I could avoid an inconvenient dealer trip. Any thoughts?

Its very easy,install everything,keep the steering wheel centered..while driving center the steering wheel,see which directions it goes,if say left,adjust the left wheel inwards & try again,a few times,thats what i did,and now the car is much better than when i first got it,but first inflate the tire levels the same & drive on a flat/leveled road

Pretty much any place that does front wheel alignment can do it easily. Factory setting with the comfort kit is 0 degrees.

Am I correct in that there is no caster or camber adjustment on the M3W. I know one of the new upper a-arm kits have threaded adjustments to allow for slight caster and camber tweaking, but not the stock M3W. Obviously toe in is adjustable.

I've never seen any car recommended 0 for toe in. The idea of toe in is to keep the car going straight without any tendencies to wander, which toe out will cause. Having "some" postitive toe in offsets any play in the steering linkage and will keep the car running true.

Not that it couldn’t work, but holding the steering wheel straight while driving and then adjusting the tie rods one at a time to give a straight path forward with the steering wheel straight, in my opinion, would be chancy to get the proper toe adjustment. (You all know about opinions, “They’re like arm pits, everyone has a couple, but some of them stink!”)

I would set the toe in to recommended specs and then drive the car. If it the steering wheel is not straight, as was said prior, if it goes left when the steering wheel is straight, you would lengthen the left tie rod end BUT I would then shorten the right tie rod end by the same number of turns; or the other direction it went to the right. Doing this will maintain the toe in to factory specs and will eliminate the possibility of any negative toe out.

My thoughts are still that 0° toe will sooner or later result in negative toe out as parts wear and loosen up. This can cause wandering and poor tire wear.

Again, this is just my opinion and I have NO experience with M3W’s at all, so I apologize if I’m speaking out of turn with my opinions.

Sorry for rambling on and on again…

Good advice Dan, that is exactly how I centre my steering wheel and it seems to work fine.

Re. the recomended toe setting of 0 degrees, quite of lot of lightweight RWD sports cars use 0 degrees, so that when under way, there is a slight toe out, this ecourages early turn-in to corners, yes there is a danger of wandering, especially under hard braking, but because the steering is so direct, it is easily controllable. It would also depend on what the car is used for. It can easily be changed though, and is a good enough place to start.

I stand corrected, thanks. I learn something new each day.

"I learn something new each day"

Yes, that's what I said to the guy in the bicycle shop today, when he told me that the reason my inner tube valve had ripped out was my fault, as I had been doing the locking ring up too tight.

I thought toe-in resulted in quick turn-in; ie:- when starting a turn the outer wheel takes more load as weight is transferred to that outer wheel and as it has already has some toe-in it is already turning into the corner and so initiates the turn quicker.
Conversely with toe-out, as the outer wheel is loaded when you turn the wheel it first has to get back to straight ahead before it actually turns left, hence a resulting sluggish response.
Any other theories? Regards PJB.

This is taken verbatim from a mob called Intrax Suspension Technology, and gives a pretty fair description.

If anyone can be bothered to look at it here: http://en.intraxracing.nl/techniek/camber,-caster,-toe-intoe-out/ it also explains about camber and castor as well.


TOE-IN / TOE-OUT
Affects 3 major areas; Tire wear, straight-line stability and corner entry handling.

For minimum tire-wear it would be ideal to have the wheels parralel / 0 degrees while riding.
This can be acomplished to give a bit static toe-out to a frontwheel-drive car, or toe-in to a rearwheel-driver.
A frontwheel-drive car has the tendency to understeer.
Toe-out will induce a bit of oversteer, so it could compensate the frontwheel-driver's understeer.

Excessive toe-in will cause the tire to scrub on the outboards and so will shorten the tire-life.
Too much toe-out will cause the inboard edges to wear out.

Steering response will be improved with toe-out.
Straight line stability will be improved with toe-in.

Sometimes toe-in or toe-out is used for another effect; Tire-temperature.
For racing-tires it's very important to reach a certain temperature in order to deliver maximum performance/gripp.
If the tires stay too cool than toe can be used for the "scrubbing" efect,
The scrubbing also has another positive effect; It will scrub the tires clean providing extra gripp for braking and cornering.

Street cars often are set up with toe-in; For good straight-line stability cornering is sacrefied.
Race cars are often set up with toe-out; Straight-line stability is sacrisfied for good cornering.

If the suspension is independent; Toe-in or -out can also be applied to the rear-wheels. The effect on the rear-wheels is generaly the same as on the front.

Also there's a difference between static and dynamic toe. Especially on a frontwheel-driver you see this happening.
The same goes for a rearwheel-driver with independent suspension left and rear.
What happens is that when torque is applied ; The driven wheels pull themselves forward trying to toe-in.
Now it depents on the construction of the suspension how much the toe-in will increase.
On streetcars this effect is a lot bigger than on race cars as they use softer rubber bushings in the suspension-joints.
These provide more comfort and "kill" more noise but doing so sacrefice precision and stiffness.

CONCLUSION:
All the above is of great importance on the handeling of the car. as well as the level of satisfaction of the driver.
So if possible use factory settings or settings who have proven to be good, as a starting point for a new setup with new springs, shocks, and/or camber-plates on your car.
Investing a vast amount of money in new shocks and not lining the wheels again in a proffesional workshop, could make your suspension-investment absolete!
It could be that you do not feel any improvement of the suspension upgrade. Also your car can easily become unsafe on a straigth, during cornering and/or under braking.
Also we hope you understand more about the lining of a car and at the same time are aware of the importance of it.

Thanks for all the info everyone. I'm ready to tackle the conversion myself. Just nee a 14mm drill bit.