Did tie rods. Steering now not "springing" back.

[AdiR34]

Hey y'all,

had some bad ball joints in my tie rods, so figured i'd just replace both inners and outers. 

Went with the high-misalignment system from GKTech. My car's lowered so figured why not.

M14 Super Adjustable Inner Tie Rod

High misalignment S13 240sx/S14/S15/Skyline tie rod ends (12mm/14mm)

Welp, took over a week to get the job done, but finally did. Took it on the maiden voyage today and...

- The OE boots do not sit properly on the new inner tie rods - If you look at the photo in the link above, new ITRs are basically threaded all the way through the length of them, so best I could do was tighten the boot down with a screw-down hose clamp onto the ITR's threads.

- There is a "whoosh"ing sound every time I turn the steering, seems like it could be coming from the air moving into/out of boots. Concerning, bc it'll likely pull in nasty shit from the outside when I turn... namely thinking of moisture.

- Looking at the rack from the back of the car, under it, the left tie rod is straighter than the right. Right droops down a bit.

- My alignment is way outta wack, that's expected. Taking it to get an alignment as soon as I can.

- The big thing is that the steering isn't really "springing" back like it used to. Wondering if there's something tied to pressurization of the system that I managed to f**k up.

This was supposed to be a 20 min job... why doesn't anything ever go right with these cars?

Edited May 16 by AdiR34

[GTSBoy]

If the toe is widly out of whack you won't get the self-centralisation that you expect and are used to. Correct the toe, then report back.

As to the stuff you've used....it's really intended for drift cars.

[luke gtr]

The alignment *should* fix the self centring issue.

Definitely get the to check your castor angle as part of the alignment(a good alignmentwill include this). As this is part of the steering axis inclination and that's what gives you the self centring ability. 

The wooshing is weird, as the volume shifts with the rack, so shouldn't be too much pressure difference. 

[hardsteppa]

9 hours ago, AdiR34 said:

- The OE boots do not sit properly on the new inner tie rods - If you look at the photo in the link above, new ITRs are basically threaded all the way through the length of them, so best I could do was tighten the boot down with a screw-down hose clamp onto the ITR's threads.

- There is a "whoosh"ing sound every time I turn the steering, seems like it could be coming from the air moving into/out of boots. Concerning, bc it'll likely pull in nasty shit from the outside when I turn... namely thinking of moisture.

- Looking at the rack from the back of the car, under it, the left tie rod is straighter than the right. Right droops down a bit.

- My alignment is way outta wack, that's expected. Taking it to get an alignment as soon as I can.

 

The boot notch on the GK Tech rods is different to OEM yes. You'll find a solution. They are a good rod, I have used many of them for various setups, and no they are not ' just for drift cars', they are fine as an OEM replacement. Same goes for the tie rod ends although I found they transmitted a huge amount of NVH a normal balljoint masks, making it feel like there was something loose or knocking, even though there wasn't.

If you used the same pieces on each side, no reason one angle should be different to the other side. Have you checked ride heights/measured the angles? Or just visual?

Your alignment will be massively out of whack yes. Up to you; it is worth taking the time to learn wheel alignments and do it yourself. I have never had better wheel alignments and I haven't taken my car to a shop for, dunno...many many years. Spend a few hundred on equipment, do alot of research via online articles, youtube vids, and "trial and error" on setups. Eg, set it with too much toe-out, toe-in, too much or little caster, drive the same stretch of awesome twisty mountain road each time, learn how they feel and how the car's handling has reacted to your changes.

[AdiR34]

Appreciate everything guys. I did go ahead and get an alignment... most of my complains are solved. Car is not perfect, but it's good enough. If I notice uneven tire wear or anything I'll just take everything back to stock. 

Thanks again!

[luke gtr]

5 hours ago, AdiR34 said:

Appreciate everything guys. I did go ahead and get an alignment... most of my complains are solved. Car is not perfect, but it's good enough. If I notice uneven tire wear or anything I'll just take everything back to stock. 

Thanks again!

Good to hear.

Hopefully you're happy enough not to notice when driving and just enjoy yourself.

[AdiR34]

11 hours ago, luke gtr said:

Good to hear.

Hopefully you're happy enough not to notice when driving and just enjoy yourself.

Yep, there's a very minor drift left that happens a few seconds after letting go of the steering wheel, but not enough to bother me. Enjoying the car still!

[soviet_merlin]

8 hours ago, AdiR34 said:

there's a very minor drift left that happens a few seconds after letting go of the steering wheel, but not enough to bother me

I think the consensus was that's normal. Sloped road surfaces or something? I remember @silviaz went through this before.

It might be one of those things you never notice until you pay attention to it.

[GTSBoy]

Most driving should* be done on one side of single lane divided roads. In the RHD world, you drive on the left side of the dividing line and the road is probably cambered equally on both sides. So your side of the road slopes away to the left. The same is true for the LHD world, just everything swapped to the other side and opposite slope.

With a perfectly neutral, straight ahead wheel alignment designed to drive straight on a perfectly flat surface (or at least one that is level on the left-right axis, even if it has some slope in the fore-aft axis) you will not be able to drive on a cambered road without the car wanting to drift down the camber. You will need to add steering input in the opposite direction all the time. This is annoying.

The solution has always been to set the camber and/or the caster to produce a continuous turning force in the opposite direction of the camber. The car will drive straight on the kind of camber for which it was set up, presumably as described in the top paragraph.

But.... when the car is set up this way, as soon as you get into a lane, usually on a multi-lane surface road or highway, where the camber is not as presumed during setup, the car will usually pull to one side. In the RHD world, if you are in the fast lane on a big divided road, you are probably on the opposite camber compared to what the car was set up for (ie, sloping down to the right) and the combination of the setup and that camber will make the car want to go right pretty hard. Even a perfectly flat lane will tend to want to go right. There's no getting around it.

Civil engineers who know their stuff (which is not an assumption that can always be made) will attempt to keep the variation in camber across a multi-lane road as small as possible, and if they can will attempt to make the fast lane as close to flat, or even cambered in the same direction as all the other lanes. This takes a lot of planning for drainage, control of levels, ability to deal with the elevation changes that occur at road junctions, etc etc. So it's not trivial to get it right. When they do make it work, then the annoyance is reduced, along with tyre wear, fuel consumption, etc. In theory, the civil engineers are supposed to worry about those aspects of road design also.

* This used to be true, but now with very large highway systems, even just multi-lane surface roads running everywhere, it is less true now than it was, but the old assumption is the basis for describing the phenomenon, so let's just run with it for the moment.

[silviaz]

1 hour ago, soviet_merlin said:

I think the consensus was that's normal. Sloped road surfaces or something? I remember @silviaz went through this before.

It might be one of those things you never notice until you pay attention to it.

I did. I went to a suspension guy and he told me because I don't have adjustable camber arms it's the reason why my car veers towards the left if I take my hands off the wheel but if I drive my other every day car and take my hands off the steering wheel it goes completely straight.

I think it's common with Skyline's. In order to fix the problem, I likely need gktech camber arms then nismo bushes since I have poly bushes atm, then a wheel alignment after that. With my car if I take my hands off the steering wheel on a really bumpy road before stopping at a light I have to hold my steering wheel somewhat tight otherwise my car will legit just go completely in the other direction quite quickly and I'll slam into something lol instead of stopping straight.

I Believe this YouTuber had the same issue and fixed it with gktech arms. At timestmap 6:05 he talks about how the car doesn't veer anymore after installing these arms.

 

Edited May 23 by silviaz

[GTSBoy]

1 hour ago, silviaz said:

I likely need gktech camber arms then nismo bushes since I have poly bushes atm,

No. GKTech arms have spherical bearings in them. No bushes. You will not need bushes for those arms.

The sphericals are a bit of a maintenance nightmare. I have replaced all of mine several times in the 5 or so years I've had them, and I have the arms out regularly to clean and lube the balls. Worth the pain on an R32, because the standard arm design is trash.

If you need the camber adjustment, there are other options (than the GKTech ones), although I would still lean towards and prefer the GKTech ones, even with the maintenance load of the sphericals.

The caster adjustment is also highly valuable, allowing for setting the car up to drive straight. There are a million options for these, including the GKTech ones. I've had Tein rods on mine for 20 years and the balls are much less trouble in that location. Never given me a moment's pain. All positives, no negatives. I consider them compulsory.

[silviaz]

45 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

No. GKTech arms have spherical bearings in them. No bushes. You will not need bushes for those arms.

The sphericals are a bit of a maintenance nightmare. I have replaced all of mine several times in the 5 or so years I've had them, and I have the arms out regularly to clean and lube the balls. Worth the pain on an R32, because the standard arm design is trash.

If you need the camber adjustment, there are other options (than the GKTech ones), although I would still lean towards and prefer the GKTech ones, even with the maintenance load of the sphericals.

The caster adjustment is also highly valuable, allowing for setting the car up to drive straight. There are a million options for these, including the GKTech ones. I've had Tein rods on mine for 20 years and the balls are much less trouble in that location. Never given me a moment's pain. All positives, no negatives. I consider them compulsory.

Sorry I meant nismo bushes in the J arm, not the actual gktech upper camber control arm.

[GTSBoy]

9 minutes ago, silviaz said:

nismo bushes in the J arm

The J arm doesn't have bushes either. Assuming that by "J arm" you mean the part of the upright that runs down from the upper arm's outer bushes to the top of the hub. That has a kingpin style bearing in it.

If you meant the lower control arm, it has 1 bush, at its inner end. If you have PU in there, that is superior to Nismo rubber.

If you meant the caster/tension rod - it has 1x bush at the front end, and again PU is superior to Nismo rubber. But as I said above, I would definitely get the GKTech arms for that, as sphericals slay all other options there.

[silviaz]

3 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

The J arm doesn't have bushes either. Assuming that by "J arm" you mean the part of the upright that runs down from the upper arm's outer bushes to the top of the hub. That has a kingpin style bearing in it.

If you meant the lower control arm, it has 1 bush, at its inner end. If you have PU in there, that is superior to Nismo rubber.

If you meant the caster/tension rod - it has 1x bush at the front end, and again PU is superior to Nismo rubber. But as I said above, I would definitely get the GKTech arms for that, as sphericals slay all other options there.

It does, this part circled in red. I assume the OEM bolt might not work well with the poly bushing because the dimensions may be different?

[GTSBoy]

Ah. OK. I take it back. I hadn't looked closely at the R33/4 arms and presumed that GKTech did as GKTech do everywhere else, which is to use sphericals there.

The poly bushings are made to be 100% interchangeable, should use the standard bolt just fine. Every other bush in every other place in pretty much every other car, does.