The drawing is kinda misleading, as your steering rack travel from left to right doesn't change.



Sure, the ball joint moves, but you're still limited by the steering rack travel which doesn't change.



Hmmm...I guess this is something we just have to mess around with.

We're correctly rewelding the tie rod end connection at the hub to get the larger angles.







-Ted

 

im doing the same thing ted, im doing it next week.

 

what size tubing/spacer did you use? i know you said 1/4 inch wide but i was wondering about the diameter and thickness of the tube you used

 

i think it was 3/4 inch off the top of my head, just take yours apart and mesure... it's realy not hard to do

 

Basically bump-steer occurs when the joint between the tie-rod and the rack doesn't line up with the suspension mounts on the car, regardless. I wouldn't get overly concerned about it though, because all cars will experience it to some degree, for instance when you turn your car, the joints will move out of line, meaning the car is more prone to bump-steer, which kinda puts this whole thing in perspective - i.e. nothing to lose any sleep over.



Mark

 

Spacers man!!

So the ends of the rods dont screw in as much!!

 

What it looks like they ARE doing is giving the rack more travel... the spacers don't change the total length between the two tie rods... IE: if the the total width between each ball joint is 70 inches before, it will be 70 inches after.



As far as I can tell, the spacers move each of the inner bumpstops outwards on the rack itself. Thus, instead of the rack being able to give one foot of travel between hitting each side's bumpstop, it can now travel 12.5". Thnik of adding a shorter bumpstop onto the stock shock absorbers... the ride height would still be the same, it would just be able to move up that much farther before it bottomed out.



This should have no affect on wheel alignment; it should only affect total rack travel length.







Am I on the right path here?

 

Here is the crappiest paint diagram I could come up with.

 

Gotcha - thanks for clearing that up.



Mark

 

Are you sure?

Or are we getting confused on terminology?

The steering wheel is still about 2.5 turns lock-to-lock.

You're not cutting extra teeth into the rack, so you're really not getting more travel.





Yes, when everything is realigned again.





No, you're still ignoring the "realignment" part.

If we take your shock analogy...

If you "shimmed" the shock downward, the shock travel is still the same - you just slid everything downward.







If you spacer the tie rods and not realign anything, you end up with toe out!





-Ted