Club 80-90 Forums

Was going to say that too... hope it hasn't had a bang on one side.
But maybe those radius arm bushes and sleeves are right grotty so that wheel has wandered a bit.

Simon's answer explains the crack, additionally I remember US syncroists using v.big.rubber moving wheels as far as poss in wheel arch on radrods to prevent rubbing, regardless of caster (or not aware of it )

You could try measuring distance between wheel centres each side (which won't prove too much, but might be a pointer).

So then..... i'm making the effort to change the radius rod bushes before i take it in to be aligned. What i've undone so far is; outer radius rod bush, drive shaft removed, anti roll bar and drop links removed, brake caliper removed, upper ball joint seperated, lower shock bolt removed. The only thing i can see still attached to the lower arm is the track rod, if i undo this will the lower arm drop down taking the radius rod with it? allowing me to replace inner radius rod bush
lloyd

You don't have to do all that to get the inner radius rod bushes out AFAIK. I think I pulled the suspension back as far as it would go, and wound the radius rod out, after marking up the current position of the backing nut. Obviously early (pre '87) Syncros had an unboltable plate style radius rod which made life easier.

as i've already got it undone though, and i was hoping to not have to remove the radius rod. if i take off the tie rod, will the lower arm and rod drop down?

iirc the radius rod on late suspension is the first thing into chassis hole followed by lower control arm so unless you remove the lower control arm I don't think you will withdraw the radius rod from the chassis, it's a crap job on a late suspension compared with the early version - I did the whole job in one go which was actually the easiest because fitting the radius rod nut is a t on your own as you need to have the arm horizontal to get enough thread length to start nut or you need to ratchet strap/big lever and fat bloke or similar to compress it to get the nut on a few threads before wazzing it up tight

bugger! Guess it'll be outer bush and sleeve only then, thats if i can get the sleeve out

stupid question time, if i'm fitting the new outer bush and sleeve. Does the bush fit in the hole? Or push up against it? Just so i know for later

If I understand question correctly, it pushes up against the hole, which is like a sleeve diameter hole counterbored out to the bush OD fore and aft.

I'm sure if you ratchet strap the tcs (lower wishbone) back to the jacking point and use giant stillsons or similar top wind out the rod first, you'll get inner bush on.

thanks for reply, i have stilsons to wind it out but won't inner bush and nut stop you being able to do that? Or am i confusing myself?

Main Nut, outer bush, washer & sleeve removed

Backing nut wound up radrod thread (pre-cleaned) away from chassis mounting as required

Pull back lower wishbone

Wind radrod out of lower wishbone/tca

Fiddle radrod out of chassis hole

Another nightmare over, sleep easy dreaming of Porsche style steering & roadholding
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Agreed! Not ideal or a fun method, as upsets 2 threads that are praps best left alone, but worked for me (needed assistance though)

NB. Late radrods have been found broken at that thread into wishbone... inspect when removed.

Got the caster done, all good no accident damage just bad adjustment He couldn't set the camber as he didn't have the right size tool. So will have to get that done at some stage. Very happy though, as crash damage does hang around in the back of the mind