Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 rear wheel aligment?

Following the owners manual i adjusted /tightend the drive belt tension today and its much quieter now as a result. I got the belt running smoothly in the centre of the bevel box sprocket and towards the outer edge of the rear one. I have noticed that since i did this my steering wheel is now slighly off centre when driving straight, it had been dead level.
Seeing as the belt is running true am i right to assume the rear wheel is aligned ok? How do i check the rear wheel isn,t doing a rear steering effect on the car? It seems to handle ok still but i dont corner very hard in it anyway.
any suggestions would be much appeciated. Thankyou

I just finished installing a new rear tire. After aligning get and tensioning the belt, the rig runs dead straight, never did that before. The belt runs about a 64th of an inch from the outer edge of the rear sprocket and it all seems good. If the belt is good, I would just re center the steering wheel and call it good.

Thanks for that. Seems although the belt was well in line and looked fine the actual wheel wasnt.
It was actually going up the road a bit crab like so i had another look and carefully aligned the belt and the wheel by ensuring adjusters where exactly the same length.
steering wheel (brooklands) is still offset but car is super straight, it doesn,t pull either way even at 70mph with hands off the wheel so i think im sorted. Cheers

To align the rear wheel in the swing arm I use a builders 50cm long laser level against the side of the rear wheel tyre and shine the laser beam to the front of the car. On the lower edge of the rear face of the centrally mounted number plate I have some masking tape with 1cm graduations equally spaced in from both ends as the laser dot target. If you place the level on first one side of the tyre then the other and see where the dot sits on the target, you can reposition the axle to get the rear wheel running in alignment with the chassis.

You could improve the accuracy by putting a spacer on the levels edge to make it rest against the wheel rim rather than the tyre but it seems to work OK. Rotate the wheel and re-check the alignment stays the same.

Clever, i might just pop down to B&Q!

I have been using a home made laser level on the rear sprocket and shining along the belt to get good belt alignment; assuming the belt run was the most important thing.

Steve

The theory is that both of these methods should produce the same results.

The only potential pitfall is if the position of the rear wheel isn't central in the chassis, in which case the only remedy would be to add or subtract axle spacers until it is as I doubt you'd be able to change the drive pulley on the bevel box!

The rear wheel should sit central, meaning that either lining up the belt run or the wheel 'twist' in the chassis would be correct.

Not sure if there's any play in the Noise/Vibration/Harshness mountings to the bevel box that would interfere with accuracy here - maybe someone else does?

...and that the number plate is central!

Cor, a lot easier with a two speeder (perhaps also a 3 but I've not done it).

Remove seat back and remove lower part of wood panel (both just lift out). One can then see the central chassis tube at the same time as the back wheel and with the mk 1 naked eye, a doddle to see any bend in alignment and correct.

This was a little unconventional but I supported the swingarm on jack stands the started the car and put it second gear. As the rear tire was spinning I adjusted the axle plates until the belt ran true, then checked the tension.

The number plate is central on the mountings, if they are central on the chassis I cannot say. Also in reply to SBM, the rear wheel measures up as pretty close to central but again not sure just how accurately the chassis is made for a datum to measure from. I think it must be better than aligning it with the bevel gearbox mounting, particularly with the NVH kit fitted. On my car the belt seems to run fairly central on the rear sprocket and towards the outer edge of the BB drive. Not keen on the idea of adjusting the axle with everything whirling round Bwitched, although it may produce the best results. A 2 speeder is looking more attractive all the time Martyn.