Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:59:19 -0700
Reply-To: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Front tire wear
In-Reply-To: <01b601ca3d50$a00e7320$6401a8c0@PROSPERITY>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 9/24/2009 12:52 PM Scott Daniel - Turbovans wrote:
> re
> Wheel alignment is a dark and mysterious subject to me.
>
> start with just the 'straight ahead' understanding . That's not hard,
> right ? .......
> the wheels need to be nearly upright, and parrellel to each other, and
> to the long axis of the vehcile........
> ie. pointing where they are going.
> nothing to complicated there, *yet* ......right ?
That's a roller skate. I got that much figured out. Jeez -- I'm not /that/
simple.
--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
Bend, OR
KG6RCR
>
> it's only when the vehicle turns and leans that things get interesting.
> Those relationsips are all determiend by the design and layout of the
> suspension........and we get to fine tune ( alignment ) on the basics
> settings built in.
>
> end of post.......
> the rest is 'extra.'
> _____________________________________________________________________________
>
>
> I love this ..........don't know if anyone will appreciate this , but ..
> there was a cover shot on Road & Track magazine, of some hot japanese
> car ........some rear wheel drive mazda or .....no, it was one of those
> Mitsubishi eclipse cars.......in any case, rear wheel drive, front
> engine, 2WD.
>
> the car is showing cornering with considerable lean to the outside.
> Normally, if you are in a left turn, the car will be learning to the
> right.
> and that's a 'normal picture' ...........turning left, car leans right,
> front wheels are turned left.
>
> but in this shot ..........high speed performance turn to the left, car
> is leaning right .......BUT ...........the front wheels are turned to
> the right.
> They have the tail hung out, so they are countersteering to keep it
> pointed in the right direction - so that's cornering left, but holding
> in right steering correction to stay on line.
> Which is an odd 'picuture' cornereing left, leaning right, but front
> wheels also turned right. We dont' normally see that too often.
>
> When we do counter steer to stay on the line, like on ice say
> .........we're not generating any real cornering force, so the car
> doesn't lean much .
>
> So to get this shot, they'd have to be cornering pretty hard to get the
> car to lean noticeably towards the outside of the turn while also
> countersteering to stay on the line. Something you don't see too often.
> That cover shot was over 10 years ago, when cars still leaned outward in
> turns nicely .......more modern preformance cars don't lean outward
> cornereing quite that much.
>
> In the beginning of car manufacturing, it took a long time to come up
> with independent front suspension that worked well. The upper and lower
> A-arm front suspension on vanagons .....is a great suspension type.
> Nothin' wrong with it at all. It's identical in concept and execution to
> the front and rear suspensions on my 450 SLC mercedes ..........( with
> the exception that that car also has a rear anti-sway bar - otherwise it
> is the saeme
> upper and lower a-arms in the front, with coil springs and anti-sway bar.
> in the rear, same thing - traiing arms and coil springs.
>
> that the vanagon has rack and pinion steering is quite a good thing too,
> not readily recognized perhaps, by vanagon owners. Compared to what the
> previous desing had.....which is all Bay and Split Window buses going
> back to the beginning of time, with their steering boxes and Swing Link
> in the front.....
> vanagon's rack and pinion steering is a massive step forward.
> and ......taken care of, vanagon rack and pinion steering hardly wears
> - very nice. VW did a super fine job on vanagon suspension and steering
> I think.
> scott
> www.turbovans.com
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rocket J Squirrel"
> <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
> Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 7:55 AM
> Subject: Re: Front tire wear
>
>
>> Now if you'd said that it was the outer edges of both front tires wearing
>> out then I could-a shared that I had the same problem, too, which turned
>> out to be excessive toe-in, which was scrubbing the rubber off the tires
>> at an alarming rate. But with inside and outside edges being scrubbed,
>> well, there's someone here that knows that that might be.
>>
>> Wheel alignment is a dark and mysterious subject to me.
>>
>> --
>> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
>> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
>> 74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
>> Bend, OR
>> KG6RCR
>>
>>
>>
>> On 9/24/2009 4:50 AM William Greenamyer wrote:
>>
>>> Both front tires are worn on both edges of each tire. It is almost
>>> like the
>>> tires had been run greatly under inflated (tends to wear the edges of
>>> the
>>> tire) but I always keep good pressure in all of the tires.
>>>
>>> William
>>>
>
>
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