VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 Front end alignment

I set my toe in at 1/8" like the book says. My 30 still wonders around. I have bias ply tires. Is there a different toe setting that will help with the wondering? Am I doomed to buying radials. If I buy radials, will this solve my problem?

If the tie rods and king pins are tight and the steering gear is good the next thing I would check is does it have enough positive caster. The more positive caster it will track better but steer harder.

It has 4 degree caster shims in it now. Should I go more than that?

You could try a few degrees more but I think I had about 4 in the 30 we had and also the 28. Have you checked the camber.
Not sure what you are comparing it to but the road surface really makes a difference, our 28 drives pretty good on a nice smooth road. There is a lot of difference in the way the 28 drives compared to our 47.

Thank you. Will try a little more caster. Not much I can do about the camber.

You might take a look at the steering arm balls, tie rods etc... if they are out of round, it to will cause, among other things, the steering to be loose and wander....

Mike

I agree that you need to start checking for wear/looseness in every joint and connection in the steering system.

The technique I use is to check with the car on the ground. The resistance due to the steering load will make the looseness more visible. It takes 2 people, one in the car turning the steering wheel back and forth and the other on the ground observing and feeling each connection.

This approach indicated that I needed to replace the kingpins and bushings in my car. You could see the spindle forging move laterally on the kingpin before it started rotating. I could not detect that looseness with the wheels off the ground.

I agree with Denny that a straight axle car drives and steers differently that one with some type of independent front suspension.

Normally camber is not a primary cause of wandering. With respect to camber, it can be adjusted if needed by bending the axle. Not many shops have the equipment to do that work theses days. It is a technique used mainly on straight axle trucks.

With the early front ends you must make sure your front ball bearings are tight. They are installed with just a tad of preload and opposite of tapered roller bearings where you tighten them then back off. This is critical. Next is your steering box. The sector and worm needs to be taken up to the point where when the wheels are facing straight ahead, there should be a very slight bind and the steering box is designed this way to help prevent wandering when driving straight ahead. The king pins are another place where people often miss. They think they’re in good condition when often they’re not. For $80 or so, I always recommend changing the kingpins. Last is your tie rod and drag link fittings. The ends need to be screwed in tightly and the manual describes setting the ends. These are not in any specific order of importance, rather a list of everything that needs to be checked.

I had the use of a mates 1929 Big Six Pontiac Sedan some years ago,and it developed the wandering your experiencing ,that I nicknamed it "Dion the Wanderer".After going through everything in the front end/steering,it came down to the original re-set front springs gradually losing their "set" or free arch height causing the wandering/shimmying problems.A set of new springs made to original specs cured it completely,making it a pleasure to drive at its happy speed of 50/55mph on the open road.

Do you think backing off on the roller bearings would cause a shimmy and shaking of the steering wheel above 40 MPH ? This has just started happening on my 32, I know my dad rebuilt everything and the car has been driven around 7,000 miles. I know there is some play in the steering bo. I have not tried adjusting it yet. I have checked all the tie rod ends and king pins and they are good. I was thinking about upgrading to roller bearings.
Thanks