True or just a Story ?

[8ob]

My old Morris 8 had the rear side windows half an inch taller on one side than the other. Hard to believe they would manufacture the huge stamps required to forge the body panels and make such a mistake.

I had one of those big square Aston Martins, that had a wide strip welded in right through the middle of the shell because of a ballsup between the body manufaturers PininFarina and the drawing office at Astons.

Bob

 

[bricol]

My Renault 4 was so badly made there was about 100mm difference between the left and right hand wheelbases.

Unless this is for comedic effect - in which case

But for the uninitiated - they used the same trailing arm assembly, and torsion bar from the center of the arm across the car on both sides - just one side was flipped over and moved back so the torsion arms didn't collide.

Same on the Renault 5 of the same era.

But it doesn't half confuse modern technicians with an all singing, all dancing geometry measuring machine who haven't worked on those cars from the 70s and 80s - the thrust angle is off the scale

 

[cheb]

:deadpan smiley:

Various tanks also had torsion bar suspension, IIRC the Germans liked it.

 

[bricol]

I am amused that you use both metric and imperial units in the above - but its all good - its just trigonometry once converted to a common unit of measure.
So.... your 1/6th of a turn of the track rod results in 1mm movement on a 18" rim which as an angle equates to 0.25 degrees. I obviously could not hope to accurately measure 1mm with string - BUT - if I attached 5' tubes (say) to the front discs (say) it means that a 0.25 degree movement on toe in or tow out is created by 3.33mm of movement at the end of my 5' tube/stick/or whatever - now that I can measure. Are you with me?

I'm exactly with you. It's how I set my Lancia up. I set it up so the suspension was at ride height, strapped straight edges to the hubs and started measuring to a centre line. Set camber first with wheels set parallel, then set toe, rechecked camber, rechecked toe etc.

As you obviously can't measure rear toe in (as required for the Lancia) from the front of the wheels as there is a car in the way, I simply measured the other end of the straight edge sticking out beyond the rear bumper as toe-out. Worked well, then dead easy to tweak as needed once it had been driven a bit as it was already very close.

I used the same technique to modify the steering rack position, vertically and horizontally on my Dutton kit car used for trials to remove the several inches of bump steer over the full suspension movement, and to get correct ackermann geometry.

I have found the Trackace laser wheel alignment tool to be pretty good for the price. A mate has mine at the moment for sorting out his rebuilt from the tyre tread up Elan S3.

 

[zzr1200]

I had one of those big square Aston Martins, that had a wide strip welded in right through the middle of the shell because of a ballsup between the body manufaturers PininFarina and the drawing office at Astons.

Bob

DBS V8, I likes them I does, the flat fronts ok, but prefer the Pontiac style front....

 

[Morrisman]

:deadpan smiley:

Various tanks also had torsion bar suspension, IIRC the Germans liked it.

A coil spring is just a torsion bar wound into a spiral, exactly the same principle. Someone ingenious had a good rethink about it all.

 

[Dilkris]

Well despite opinions on how to perform wheel alignment and a brief trip down memory lane regarding some basic trigonometry and similar triangles we now know that 5 foot fluorescent light tubes are not especially round - and moreover do, surprisingly, bend.

 

[oldbikedavey]

Well despite opinions on how to perform wheel alignment and a brief trip down memory lane regarding some basic trigonometry and similar triangles we now know that 5 foot fluorescent light tubes are not especially round - and moreover do, surprisingly, bend.

String has a lot going for it.