How "nervous" is your car on the street?

[Wesley J]

Up here in Canuckistan our roads are pretty bad from the freeze thaw cycles and because of that we use asphalt that's quite ductile. Add a lot of big trucks and hot summer weather and you effectively get ruts in the pavement. My manual rack and relatively big tires on my narrow '67 Mustang result in my car wanting to constantly track these ruts. It's almost always wanting to climb out of the ruts. Being a manual rack, I have to drive with two hands on the wheel at all times. Just wondering if you guys find this to be the case too?

I'm switching over to power steering soon so the strength of the road feedback should be drastically reduced.

I should mention that I dont have any bushings in the car anymore, they're all spherical rod ends. To be honest I havent really noticed much of a change in ride quality. Maybe it was just really bad before but the handling, responsiveness and feel have been drastically increased. So much so that it feels like a different car.

Wes

[John Wright]

I notice the ruts mostly going through the city, where big trucks sit at stop lights...seems to be worst there than out on the open highways.

[406 Q-ship]

Well at least the roads up there have good reason to be in poor shape, down here in SoCal the politicians have used highway money for every hairbrained idea. The roads in Cali used to be the best in the US for the longest time, now not so much.

My way of handling the truck ruts is the same as you two hands on the wheel, even with power steering. Dodging the pot holes and by picking my routes carefully. The Malibu still has some rubber in the front end I get kick back through the steering wheel. Down here the cities have decided the actually repairing the roads is way to good for us taxpayers, all that they do here to the slurry coat right over the disintergrating asphalt. First rainy season the streets fall apart again.

[Frenchican]

I've done some work in eastern Alberta's oil fields and even with the road bans, they get beat up pretty good during the thaw. I remember working up in Cold Lake in January and I pulled up to the job site one morning and shut my engine off. A guy came up to me and said "You don't want to do that. Best to leave your truck running." I said 'all day?' He said "If you want to get home tonight, yeah!"

Tough place eh?

[Wesley J]

Thanks for all the feedback, good to hear I'm not alone. I guess it comes with the territory of these kinds of cars.

Frenchican, ya the weather here can be a little rediculous. Calgary doesnt get too hot (~100F) or cold (-25F) but can change from 65F to 0F in less than 24 hours. I've seen it with my own 2 eyes, hence the craptastic roads. Up north it can hit -50 or worse.....

Wes

[Frenchican]

I like Calgary, spend much time there but not lately. I stay at The Arts and eat at Ceaser's. Great steaks!


Thanks for all the feedback, good to hear I'm not alone. I guess it comes with the territory of these kinds of cars.

Frenchican, ya the weather here can be a little rediculous. Calgary doesnt get too hot (~100F) or cold (-25F) but can change from 65F to 0F in less than 24 hours. I've seen it with my own 2 eyes, hence the craptastic roads. Up north it can hit -50 or worse.....

Wes

[mc84_zz4]

When I lived in Colorado, the ruts on the road didnt match the track of my car, so it would want to switch lanes all the time when running in the ruts (245s on front)
I replaced the rag joint on the steering box, and eventually replaced the worn-out steering box.
An alignment helped back then, but I believe 1/2 of my problems was the wear on the steering box.
HTH

I just checked out your build thread.. what an amazing ride you built. other than a different alignment setting, I have nothing to offer...

[GrabberGT]

I've got similar issues with my Maverick. 245's on front, narrow track, cut springs, manual steering and Texas farm roads will have the car darting all over the place. I've since upgraded the front suspension to TCP coil-overs to get some travel back keeping the car from basically diving into a ravine but still... not totally solved. Im installing a RRS power rack and pinion setup now with baer bump-stop correction in hopes that that will make it MUCH more manageable. I'll let you know how it works out.

[fbody_mike]

Adding a little more toe in helped me some with tracking. But I noticed that the wider tires will just follow the road, even when the road is all over the place.

[John Wright]

Has anyone tried a steering damper? (like on a 4WD)

Just curious.

[Wesley J]

I just checked out your build thread.. what an amazing ride you built. other than a different alignment setting, I have nothing to offer...

Thanks for the kind words.

I havnt added it to my build thread yet but I've gone with a QA1 bumpsteer kit. I now have essentially zero lash in my steering system which of course makes you feel the road that much more.

I've increased the toe from 1/8" to about 3/16- 1/4" as I was findng the car was wandering under hard braking. After some reading here it was suggested that a rear steer car needs a bit more toe. It has helped dramitcally.

I have quite a bit of camber (0.75 degrees) in the car right now too which could add to the rut tracking. Thoughts?

Wes

[Wesley J]

Has anyone tried a steering damper? (like on a 4WD)

Just curious.

I have them on a few of my bikes and they're fantastic. Interesting thought.

Wes

[John Wright]

Heck, even our old 72 VW had one(very small, but effective).

[Ripped]

Up here in Canuckistan our roads are pretty bad from the freeze thaw cycles and because of that we use asphalt that's quite ductile. Add a lot of big trucks and hot summer weather and you effectively get ruts in the pavement. My manual rack and relatively big tires on my narrow '67 Mustang result in my car wanting to constantly track these ruts. It's almost always wanting to climb out of the ruts. Being a manual rack, I have to drive with two hands on the wheel at all times. Just wondering if you guys find this to be the case too?

I'm switching over to power steering soon so the strength of the road feedback should be drastically reduced.

I should mention that I dont have any bushings in the car anymore, they're all spherical rod ends. To be honest I havent really noticed much of a change in ride quality. Maybe it was just really bad before but the handling, responsiveness and feel have been drastically increased. So much so that it feels like a different car.

Wes

I have a '67 and what you're describing, are two problems;
Manual steering/wide tires = high steering effort.

Tramlining = When the ruts in the road exert more force than you can with your steering wheel.

I have a big block car, and the suspension has evolved quite a bit, to the point where it handles and drives as well as any modern car.

I went through all of those same problems. Starting with a manual steering/ stock suspension /arning UCA drop.

The car was crazy to drive.

1st thing you want to do, is get rid of the factory strut rods, and install a TCP style (ball) or aftermarket heim joint strut.

2nd thing, is get the Baer bump steer kit, and install that. It took me about 10 hours to zero out the toe change. The pro motor sports and other kits, do not come close to the baer kit.

Those two changes made a night and day difference to the handling and reduced tramlining quite a bit.

Check your balljoints and suspension components for wear... etc

FYI your toe should be 1/16 to 1/8" if you are needing more, then throw your Bumpsteer kit in the garbage, it has not corrected the problem. Set up more + caster in your car (check the opentracker alignment specs).
#1 get the strut rods. It will take care of the panic steering under braking and help big time with the tramlining

[Wesley J]

Good info but I'm running a strut front suspension, brand new everything. Stock style '67 alignment doesnt really apply. My castor is currently fixed unitl I buy/build castor/camber plates.

I have virtually zero bumpsteer and the QA1 kit is very well built.

Wes

[Ripped]

Good info but I'm running a strut front suspension, brand new everything. Stock style '67 alignment doesnt really apply. My castor is currently fixed unitl I buy/build castor/camber plates.

I have virtually zero bumpsteer and the QA1 kit is very well built.

Wes

Didn't know you had an aftermarket strut type system.
Your car definitely should handle better. I assumed the you had a factory suspension system. What you describe is how my 40+ y/o suspension acted like.

Something is majorly wrong. What are your alignment specs right now?

What is your scrub radius measurment?

Your car looks great BTW, nice stance!

[Wesley J]

I think you may be misunderstading. Ever vehicle I have tracks these ruts as they can be quite severe. I should take some pics, they can be 6" high in some places. What I'm saying is that this light little car with relatively wide and sticky tires tends to follow them or ride up them. Its not grabbing the wheel out of my hands, the steering is tracking true, I just have to correct to stay in or get out of the ruts.

My scrub radius is stock for the '04 Mustang front suspension that I'm running.

Wes

[John Wright]

I think you may be misunderstading. Ever vehicle I have tracks these ruts as they can be quite severe. I should take some pics, they can be 6" deep in some places. What I'm saying is that this light little car with relatively wide and sticky tires tends to follow them or ride up them. Its not grabbing the wheel out of my hands, the steering is tracking true, I just have to correct to stay in or get out of the ruts.

My scrub radius is stock for the '04 Mustang front suspension that I'm running.

Wesfixed it for ya.:cheers:

[Ripped]

I think you may be misunderstading. Ever vehicle I have tracks these ruts as they can be quite severe. I should take some pics, they can be 6" high in some places. What I'm saying is that this light little car with relatively wide and sticky tires tends to follow them or ride up them. Its not grabbing the wheel out of my hands, the steering is tracking true, I just have to correct to stay in or get out of the ruts.

My scrub radius is stock for the '04 Mustang front suspension that I'm running.

Wes

I looked at your build thread. I glanced at your LCA's. They have threaded heim joints.
Therefore, unless you run out of threads, your camber and caster are adjustable, without using a (camber) plate on the top of the shock tower.

We have exactly the same problem, where I live. Trucks create huge ruts in the roads.


All I am telling you, that tramlining is 100% fixable.

Anyway best of luck.

[Wesley J]

I looked at your build thread. I glanced at your LCA's. They have threaded heim joints.
Therefore, unless you run out of threads, your camber and caster are adjustable, without using a (camber) plate on the top of the shock tower.

True, but I'd like to have castor/camber plates to maintain the wheel centered in the opening. Its different geometry than U/LCA's. An added 2 degrees for me would move my wheel forward in excess of 1 inch.



All I am telling you, that tramlining is 100% fixable.

Anyway best of luck.

So, you're saying some more camber will help then?

[wmhjr]

I think you may be misunderstading. Ever vehicle I have tracks these ruts as they can be quite severe. I should take some pics, they can be 6" high in some places.

6" high! Gads!

My car would be bottomed out with the oil pan, crossmember and exhaust laying tattered behind me in that case!

[Ripped]

So, you're saying some more camber will help then?

Do you have a wheel alignment measuring tool?, like the fastrax;

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SPS-91000/

[preston]

Yeah tramlining is always an issue. I run 285 on a 10.5" rim up front with a custom suspension with low scrub radius and 7+ degrees of caster. On flat roads or tracks the car drives excellent but it will tramline on rutted roads, no way around it.

With only 245 on the front, I would say power steering will be the biggest benefit right now. And always go through your system over and over looking for loose spots. HOld that steering column and have someone rock it back and forth, looking for ticks and looseness. I can't count the times I've gone out and said "oh man this is really bad,was it always this bad ?" and get back and find a ujoint in the steering system getting loose. (I use Borgeson joints and even with lock tite those little set screws always seem to loosen up. Next time I find one loose I"m gonna start safety wiring it somehow).

In some ways the spherical joints could make it worse because they have no give, whereas the rubber will kind of dampen the tramlining. HOwever I'm not recommending going back !

We can't diagnose your car from here, but to a certain extent it will always be a problem but you can improve it.

So, system inspection, power steering, bump steer, and more caster. You should be running at least 6 degrees IMO.

[JEFFTATE]

Read this thread too :
https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56218&highlight=tramlining

I also got this info from the Tire Rack link /artcle:

I understood the following :
Extra toe-out turns better / faster , so that can increase the effects of tramlining.
Extra toe-out reduces vehicle stability .
And large tread block tires tramline easier.
Also , the more negative or positive Camber increases a tires tendency to turn..

So , if I reduce my toe-out and reduce my negative camber a little ( within reason ) , I may reduce my cars tramlining problem...

[JEFFTATE]

Also , check out these other threads :
https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/search.php?searchid=1830814

[castine917]

my 67 camaro does not tramline on mich. roads, but my brothers 92 mitsu. vr4 and my 95 stang both did. both mitsu and stang had 275/40/17. after wearing out tires on stang i replaced them with different tires of same size and the tramlining was greatly reduced. in my case it had more to do with the exact rubber compound than anything else.

[rentedmule]

My truck is terrible for this, it can get a bit unnerving on rough highways. Wide tires definitely exacerbate the issue. I hardly notice it all with my 205 winter tires but it gets nasty with the 265 summers on.

[Wesley J]

Great info guys! I'm going to pickup an alignment tool as Ripped has suggested.

I spent some more time taking very careful measurements on my steering and found that I was about 1/16 of an inch different on my tie rod lengths. I adjusted them so they're as close to perfect as I can get and it's made a significant improvement. I thought I was very careful before but I guess not careful enough.

Preston and Jeff, thanks for the info. I'll inspect the entire steering system in detail tomorrow.

I'm off to Autocross the jalopy for the 1st time tomorrow. ~180 hp, an automatic, 3:1 rear end, manual steering (2 turns lock to lock) and a craptastic driver. I may have to rename the car to "Slow Handful"........ Or "Eric Clapton-ful...."

I'm going to spend this evening going through the car in detail looking for loose stuff. Wish me luck.....

Wes

[Wesley J]

6" high! Gads!

My car would be bottomed out with the oil pan, crossmember and exhaust laying tattered behind me in that case!

Crazy on the motorcycle too! Tramlining is a bit scarier on 2 wheels.....