Re:Jimny jb74 pulling to the left

Roger Fairclough wrote: Steering wheel connects to steering column. Column connects to steering box and turns through 90 degrees and exits box via Pitman arm which transmits to nearside hub via the relay rod. This rod has a ball joint at each end . Usually they have a r/hand and a l/hand thread. To centre the wheel you slacken the nut and bolt that lock the ball joints to the tie rod and turn the tie rod to either shorten or lengthen it. When you have the wheel in the correct position you tighten the nuts and bolts. You need to have the wheels in the straight ahead position.
Now, in the land of milk and honey that is all you need to do.
But.
We do not live in the land blah blah blah, so you may find that the ball joint threaded sections are seized solid so you may need to use draconian methods to loosen them off . Personally I would remove the tie rod and use a degree of heat whilst having it clamped in my vice.
But you may live in that land and it all goes smoothly. We can but hope.

Roger

Thanks again Roger for all your help... Let see in which land I live...

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If you have lengthened the suspension supports (longer dampers and springs) then the drag link from the pitman arm on the bottom of the steering box will have changed its angle in relation to the axle. This will have effectively shortened this rod, thus turning (both of) the wheels in the direction of the steering box end (to the right on a right hand drive car) the connection across the back of the diff tube between the two front wheels will not have changed, and indeed doesn’t need to change, because the complete diff/axle/brakes and wheels assembly has moved as one thus retaining the toe in/toe out setting.
You should only need to adjust the relay rod length to make it a little longer to account for the changed height of the suspension which will then straighten both wheels up as they are connected together across the back of the assembly by the other rod which remains fixed in length.
I am curious as to why OME supply a panhard rod relocation bracket for the rear axle but nothing for the front steering rod, retaining the factory angle, keeping the angle of the relay rod as shallow as possible, between the steering box and the first front wheel would make the steering less twitchy as this angle change, as the axle rises and falls, has a direct effect on the way the two front wheels point, ie if you held the steering wheel straight, thus the steering box was stationary, and thus the pitman arm was in a fixed position, then as the other end of the drag link rises and falls as the front wheel goes up and down over bumps, the front wheels turn left and right respectively (for a right hand drive car) as the drag link length remains fixed but its wheel end follows an arc as it moves up and down pushing and pulling the outer end with it.
If you haven’t disconnected any of the points between steering wheel shaft, steering column in the engine bay and steering box input then it should be a simple case of loosening the two locknuts on the drag link (24mm) and turning the rod with a 21mm spanner to lengthen the rod and bring the two front wheels straight again, use of a masons rule (a 3m long straight edge) down the side of the car at wheel centre height touching both sides of the rear tyres will touch either the rear of the front tyre but not the front (toe in or turning away from the ruler) the front of the front tyre but not the back (toe out or turning towards the ruler) or touching both points on both wheels (neutral toe or steering straight ahead). Check on both sides of the car that they are both the same before tightening the locknuts back up.
Hope this makes sense.

Update:

We tried all the things suggested but the car is not that easy to align, let me try to explain...

We proceed to align the car using the correct model specifications then we adjusted the arm to make the steering wheel straight, but when we test drive the car it start to pull to the left A LOT, I had to compensate to the right almost 45 degrees, then we attached the wheel alignment sensor to the wheels one more time just to double check, the geometry of the alignment changed when we adjusted the arm so we had to align one more time.

Now the car is running straight but the steering wheel is not 100% straight. It's better than before but not spot on.


I was short on time due the lockdown in my country. So another visit to the shop for me

Another thing, please take a look at the image, I installed the caster correction bushes as per instructions but the caster seems weir.

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I would have expected a caster angle of around 4 degrees.

Roger

Me too.

Does anyone know if there are castor corrected radius arms available for sale for my setup? I dont want to deal with these types of bushes anymore.

Now I haven't done the maths on this but I have a feeling that the correction bushes have been put in the wrong way round and instead of putting the caster angle back to normal have gone the wrong way and decreased it. With an angle so close to vertical that motor would wander all over the road.
I have used properly made correction bushes made in the manner of a rubber void bush and they were fine. I have voiced my dislike of poly bushes for various reasons and I wont change my mind.

Roger