Ball joint extenders (REVIEW)

I'd this to my old mk1 last year and i'm pretty sure you'll just find as Ian has mentioned that you're tracking is miles out, probably toeing out far to much since you fitted the trackrods ends. Get that done before you start messing about any further.

Once the tracking was reset on mine everything was fine.

 

I'm going to be fitting mine to my Mk2 soon (well, when I get back from honeymoon).

Does anyone know if I'm going to need to move the track rods in the same way?

 

Right. After having a fiddle this morning I have decided the ideal place for the rod ends to be is right in the middle of the hub!!! Above the hub and I get bump steer over bigger bumps but ok on smaller stuff and below the hub I get very twitchy over smaller stuff but not a lot over the bigger bumps!

Two options I can think of.

1) lower / raise the car (I have a coilover kit to fit at some point anyway)

2) re-weld the steering rack mounts and change the height of that and hence the angle of the rods.

Think I ought to get my ass into gear and get the coilover kit fitted and then have another look at the bumpsteer issues as the geometry will have changed again once lowered some more...

Not had a go at measuring anything without the springs fitted yet though...

 

The other alternative is to pack the steering rack upwards.

 

How would you pack the rack upwards without moving the mounts?

 

I forgot yours was a Mk1....you can do it with a Mk2, but I cant remember how a Mk1 mounts.

 

Just a couple of metal straps with holes that fit over some captive bolts... Think to move it would require cutting off and re-welding...

 

reviving this thread - those of you who have fitted lower balljoint extenders, whats the verdict ?

One of the first thing said on this thread was "the steering is a lot lighter"

This combined with info here

http://www.clubgti.com/forum/showthread.php?t=168492

suggest a loss of castor. And thats a bad thing.

What do folks think ?

 

Right then, having had the extenders and tie rods sitting on the shelf for far too long, it got my act together and had a play about with them.

Initially I fitted just the extenders and tried the standard tie rod ends in both the normal and flipped positions. I was not happy at all.
- With the tie rod ends on the top, the car suffered way too much bump steer and was unstable to drive.
- With the tie rod ends flipped, the car suffered more over small bumps and also got dragged across changing road cambers and bad surfaces! Very scary.
The toe change was actually visible when jacking the car up/down.

After a quick measure up I had decided that the extenders were not long enough to match the position of the flipped tie rod ends so the extenders went back in a box and were left on a shelf.

But after the cars poor performance at Donny, I decided to take another look at the geometry.

Firstly I put the original H&R rear springs back on. This helped balance the car out as with the rear springs being stiffer than the front it was lifting the rear corners too easily and diving the opposing front corner into the floor.

Then I took a look at the toe. I set the toe to slightly out instead of in. This has made the biggest difference to the understeer issue. Now the car pulls itself round the bends like it should and you can feel the diff working whereas before there would be understeer. Bare in mind that its very slippery and greasy at the moment with all the frost and road salts.

Finally, I fitted the extenders to the car again and flipped the compbrake rod ends to under the pickup point. The rod ends come with two sets of spacing washers and it was the thinner ones that seem to work bringing the tie rods closer to the pickup point. The distance the extenders drop the wishbone is 38mm. The distance between the top and bottom positions of the compbrake rod ends seems to be roughly 38mm too using the thinner washers. The wishbones are now level and the tracking is slightly toed out with -2.5 degrees of camber.

Now the car drive fine and hasn't tried to pull me off the road yet. Body roll has decreased even further and the car inspires much more confidence in hard driving even with the winter weather. I will be doing some further checks on a garage ramp so that I can raise and lower the front of the car uniformly and try to measure if there is any toe change. I will also need to do some dry warm weather testing so I can push the car harder and see what happens too.


Gurds

 

Only just seen this thread. When i got my compbrake track rod end they were way too long. With the hub pointing forwards and ends in as far at they go it looked like this:



After speaking to compbrake i ended up cutting them down for them to sit about right but after all the messing around the tracking is now all over the place. Going to have to get it as close as i can using the string method before its even driveable to get it done properly. Mine only came with the thicker washers. Heres a couple of pic of what it looks like now. Not bothered sorting the tracking yet as it doesn't see the light of day in winter but i may have to cut them down a bit more if a lot of adjustment is needed.

 

I know this is a bit late but shouldn't the allen head bolt be inserted the other way round as shown in my second pic above? Would have thought the extra width of the nut being so close the the movement of the rose joint may cause it to make contact with the surronding edge of the joint with movement?

 

Turbtech, I have the allen head end on the rod end like you say. I haven't seen any probelms with my installation yet.

I didn't have to cut mine down as I needed the extra length for my widetrack setup.

One point to note though. Thoroughly paint the rod end extensions and ball joint extenders as they rust very quickly.

Gurds

 

Oh yeah that reminds me Haven't had the car on the road since fitting it all so i've been a bit lazy, another job to add to the list

 

sorry for the hijack... wide track a mk1? could you pm me how mate?

 

You have a PM Tristan.

Gurds

 

One thing Gurds touched on is that when you flip the track rod ends on a mk1 arm you lower the axis far more than required. If the balljoint extenders lower the pivot, say, 25mm then you need to lower the track rod by the same amount, lower it anymore and you simply get the bumpsteer back. Not easy to do as it puts the trackrod into the steering arm.

Also, when you fit ball joint extenders you steepen your theoretical kingpin axis as the ball joint extends in the vertical plane. Slacken off the three screws holding your balljoint in the wishbone and see if theres enough slack to pull the ball joint out, you effectively need to increase your wishbone length, then reset your camber in the normal way.

Next thing to try is to shorten your track rods, I know it doesn't sound right but in my experience it works. What you need to do is wind you inner track rod joints off the rack by 3mm per side. Simply pull back the boot, slacken the locknut then holding the locknut in place wind the joint out till there's a 3mm gap to the locknut then wind the locknut out and tighten it. You will now have loads of toe in, reset this by winding your outer trackrod ends in 3mm to match what you did at the rack end.

My car runs adjustable TCA's that lower the balljoint way more than balljoint extenders, and I use Aurora M14 female rose joints for trackrod ends and my trackrods are shortened 5mm per side.. (rack is effectively 10mm wider)

 

https://www.minimaniauk.co.uk/web/SCatagory/SUSPENSION/DisplayType/Calver's%20Corner/DisplayID/1095/ArticleV.cfm

I am doing a bit of experimentation presently with front suspension and saw this - a diy bumpsteer guage - may be of use

 

Yes I'm also going to make this when the weather is better, as in one of the suspension books i have - competition car suspension, part of the haynes range

 

out of interest gurds, did you measure the toe change with both trackrod setups?

I am just curious to know if we are talking sub-mm changes or several mm changes.....staniforth's book on these things says that folks should aim for no more than 5-15 thou through the normal range of suspension travel (0.125-0.375mm only!), always toe-out in bump rather than toe-in which he says is very undesirable but to much out will lead to understeer characteristics ( a feature present in many production cars to make them understeer in roll and 'safe' for the hairdresser drivers)