ball joints...bump steer kit

Hello,

I'm in the process of installing a bump steer kit in my front end and of course this requires removing the spindles from the front of the car. I have a ball joint front end and l've had very little luck removing these with the exception of the tie rod for the steering. I used a pulley puller for the tie rod joint however this tool will not work for the other two joints as the knuckle of the spindle is in the way. Sure seems tight in that area to get any kind of tool on it.

Any thoughts would be great.

J-P

Ball joint removal tools are available from most auto supply stores. They look like a tapered angle, two-tine fork.

Bump steer can sometimes be reduced or eliminated by running light wheel/tire combinations (aluminum or magnesium wheels).

(Message Edited 5/7/2003 10:36:49 AM)

Jean-Paul: I used a piece of say 5/16 allthread cut to fill the space between the two ball joint studs. I threaded a bolt onto each end of the allthread and tightened each nut against the studs and pop, free they became. Sort of a homemade expansion tool.

BD

Bill,

I used that method you wrote about, worked great. As for the pickle fork type, I hear those can tear up a ball joint. Anyway the
the spindles are off the car and off to a machine shop. The tie
rods had a good amount of angle pointing up when the car is on the ground which is my guess to why the car is a little twichy during heavy braking, we will see.

J-P

Front wheel Bumper steer is an occurrance when the suspension travels upward and the wheels will toe in or toe out. In oval asphalt racing we would obtain zero bump steer by equaling the travel length of the bottom A-arm and the tie rod length. Think of it this way you have two parallel lines , if they move in a parallel direction the angle stays the same. If they are slightly off a few degrees and in length the upward travel causes a pushing or pulling affect casing the wheels to toe in or out. We have a special jig with dial indicators to obtain zero bump steer.

Thanks Joe for the comment,

The reason for this mod is to reduce the amount of toe change when I'm on the brakes or during a bump. The tie rods are pointing upwards pretty drastically from the steering box and I can only imagine that the toe changes and causes the tires to have a toe out conditon during a bump or when I'm on the brakes hard. The idea is to take the ball joint end that attaches to the spindle and mount it under the spindle arm instead of on top of it. This mod will set the tie rods more towards a horizontal position. By getting the rods in a more hrizontal position like the factory set them at VW I should be able to reduce the amount of bump steer. From reading these posts it seems like I'm not tthe only one experiencing bump steer. I would bet that IM's don't have this problem though as their cars have a rack&pinion installed which I would assume is located in good position for reducing bump steer. Anyway I should get the spindles back today and have them installed and the car realligned on Sat.
I'll post my findings.

J-P

How do you plan to overcome the fact that one steering arm is about six times longer than the other? I guess fixing the short side is better than doing nothing, but it will never go away. The best thing we have going for us as far as bump steer is concerned with a lowered speedster is that there ain't much suspension movement up front at all. As a wise man once observed, " the only reason the front suspension works is because the rear suspension is so bad."

Your right about never getting rid of bump steer completely however by relocating the ball joints to set the steering arms close to horizontal the bump steer effect will be greatly reduced. I'm not sure if you have a Vintage or not but next time your out by your car take a look underneath at the tie rods. You'll notice that the rods are angled upwards, especially the shorter one.

I agree with your last statement David, your right, the rear sus. on these cars are nothing more than a glorified door hinge.....I do have to say that at least it is still better than a solid rear axle.

Well I got the car back togather and realigned so I'll drive it around the next couple of days and see what the effect is. I'll keep everyone posted.

J-P