Steering Wheel Wont Centre After Wheel Alignment

[Johnny O.]

I taped a string to the front tire. Stretch the string to the rear and tie it to a jack stand or something. The string has to just touch the front and rear of the front tire but not bend coming of the rear of the tire. Then measure the distance from the string to the tire at the front and rear of the rear tire.
Ray, The lazer level is a good idea it dose the same thing as the string but would be much easer than adjusting that darn string. The book says to do the alignment with the full wt. of the car on the wheels so all us DIY guys would have to measure from the tires, just make sure you don’t have any raised lettering throwing off the string or the lazer level.

 

[PlayStation]

I'm fortunate to be a Service Advisor at a Dodge dealer in oregon. I asked one of my techs to look at everything. He didn't find anything wrong either. I needed to replace my Trac Bar anyway. Pulled it off, and voila, it was smoked. I had to reinforce a couple things with some welds and some steel plates. Check out your front end gear against stock gear to make sure it's not bent. I had NO witness marks anywhere.

I changed the track bar over the weekend believeing that my alignment problems will be a thing of the past. Unfortunately the track bar is not the problem as nothing changed.

Upon close examinination of the suspension i realize that teh axle appears to have moved slightly to one side. that is the reason why the rod and the tie rod end meet before the steering wheel gets properly adjusted. i thought changing both the upper and lower control arms would do the trick. still no change. somenone please tell me other than the control arms and the track bar is their any other suspension link that affects the positioning of the axle?

as a temporary solution i cut off a piece of the tie rod end and wheels as well as the steering wheel are now perfectly aligned. what is the effect of reducing the tie rod end to kinda force teh alignment.

I am thinking if i get the track bar to be lengthened slightly it would push the axle to one side and i thus get the missing space to align the normal way without reducing the size of the TRE. i can gain that length by hammering on the track bar to reduce the curve at teh diff. do you guys think that lengthening the track bar slightly would have me sorted out. what is the effect of doing so to the vehicle generally and to the steering stability.

Still hopeful for a lastig solution.........

:search:

 

[Rick Anderson]

...somenone please tell me other than the control arms and the track bar is their any other suspension link that affects the positioning of the axle?...

The track bar positions the axle, laterally (left/right), the UCA/LCA position the axle longitudinally (fore/aft) as well as its camber angle.

The only way the UCA/LCA would effect the position of the axle laterally is if they were mangled and bent so bad they pulled the axle so badly out of position longitudinally, it effected the position laterally. But you changed all the links, so:

I'm guessing you've got a body/frame problem. The tower on the "C"-Channel/Frame Rail that the Track Bar bolts too, double check that is straight.

You haven't raised this thing or changed the springs, have you?

 

[PlayStation]

The track bar positions the axle, laterally (left/right), the UCA/LCA position the axle longitudinally (fore/aft) as well as its camber angle.

The only way the UCA/LCA would effect the position of the axle laterally is if they were mangled and bent so bad they pulled the axle so badly out of position longitudinally, it effected the position laterally. But you changed all the links, so:

I'm guessing you've got a body/frame problem. The tower on the "C"-Channel/Frame Rail that the Track Bar bolts too, double check that is straight.

You haven't raised this thing or changed the springs, have you?

The vehicle has not been raised. i did change the springs but with OEM. I have nevertheless noticed that the front left hand side of the vehicle appears to be slightly raised as opposed to the left drivers side (its RHD). that indeed was the reason i changed the springs but even after the spring change no change to the vehicle. the shocks too were changed at the same time as the springs.

The tower things appears ok to me. and none of the items above in the engine compartment or down at the steering box appears out of place. probably that fact of one side being above the other side could have an effect on tie rod and drag link. so far cant tell what the cause is.....

 

[Rick Anderson]

Did you tell us the vehicle was RHD before?

Do you think its possible that you have some LHD parts mixed in with RHD drive parts?? RHD would put the steering box on the opposite side, I imagine many of the parts for the steering would be different, and someone might have given you LHD parts, without thinking about checking RHD part numbers, since that is such a rare vehicle option.