88 suspension work (Page 2/6) 1985 Fiero GT JUN 08, 11:40 PM quote Originally posted by pmbrunelle: Normally, the steel sleeve fits tightly inside the polyurethane bushing, possibly requiring some taps with the hammer to get it inside. How do you squeeze Teflon tape in the gap, seeing as there is no gap? If tape is pre-wrapped onto the sleeve, does it not bunch up and get pushed off the steel sleeve when inserting the sleeve into the polyurethane bushing? It's tricky, it's only possible with a single layer of tape around in a spiral, with no overlaps at all, then turning the metal part while pushing it in (if tape is wrapped similar in direction to the threads on a screw, then turn it counter clockwise, "unscrewing" it while pushing it in to keep tension on the tape to prevent it from bunching up). cartercarbaficionado JUN 09, 05:37 AM got it Installed and it handles about the same. which immediately showed me that my steering rack is worn and cannot be adjusted without binding so I'll be getting another I guess and probably put a steering damper on this one after it gets an alignment and keep it on the new one once I find one locally that doesn't have the same issues and no it's not bad enough to park the car, just likes to bump steer when you almost bottom the front out ( a common occurrence with how terrible the roads are) and sometimes the center has a little play but isn't there constantly Yellow-88 JUN 09, 10:12 AM quote Originally posted by cartercarbaficionado: got it Installed and it handles about the same. which immediately showed me that my steering rack is worn and cannot be adjusted without binding so I'll be getting another I guess and probably put a steering damper on this one after it gets an alignment and keep it on the new one once I find one locally that doesn't have the same issues and no it's not bad enough to park the car, just likes to bump steer when you almost bottom the front out ( a common occurrence with how terrible the roads are) and sometimes the center has a little play but isn't there constantly This post raises several questions. What do you mean by "handles about the same? Same as what? What were the symptoms "before"? "Steering rack adjusted"? The 88 front geometry is right out of an advanced text book on chassis design. Lotus was not involved with Fierro's but obviously do use the same text book for their cars. Alignment is absolutely the most critical part of "handling". This is a thread I started back in 2005 after hearing so many complaints about shops not getting it right after installing poly bushings. I'm sure it will raise new questions that I am very willing to address. https://www.fiero.nl/forum/...060811-2-060836.html cartercarbaficionado JUN 09, 07:01 PM quote Originally posted by Yellow-88: This post raises several questions. What do you mean by "handles about the same? Same as what? What were the symptoms "before"? "Steering rack adjusted"? The 88 front geometry is right out of an advanced text book on chassis design. Lotus was not involved with Fierro's but obviously do use the same text book for their cars. Alignment is absolutely the most critical part of "handling". This is a thread I started back in 2005 after hearing so many complaints about shops not getting it right after installing poly bushings. I'm sure it will raise new questions that I am very willing to address. https://www.fiero.nl/forum/...060811-2-060836.html it handles...sloppy? the steering wheel center will change slightly and it bump steers quite bad and you could just feel something was off.. which was because the upper control arm bushings were straight up missing so we did the poly bushings expecting a slight improvement and what we got was much nicer travel and handling but the steering is still quite sloppy on and off throttle. it tends to try to go right aggressively off the throttle and left when you get on the throttle but the rear end checks out fine so it's going to get an alignment because the front has visible positive chamber and very visible toe out so I'm hoping that makes it better but I'm not so sure. installing a new not crooked spoiler had helped before the new bushings to alleviate this issue at speed but its back now and much worse probably due to the much worse alignment Yellow-88 JUN 10, 09:01 AM quote Originally posted by cartercarbaficionado: it handles...sloppy? the steering wheel center will change slightly and it bump steers quite bad and you could just feel something was off.. which was because the upper control arm bushings were straight up missing so we did the poly bushings expecting a slight improvement and what we got was much nicer travel and handling but the steering is still quite sloppy on and off throttle. it tends to try to go right aggressively off the throttle and left when you get on the throttle but the rear end checks out fine so it's going to get an alignment because the front has visible positive chamber and very visible toe out so I'm hoping that makes it better but I'm not so sure. installing a new not crooked spoiler had helped before the new bushings to alleviate this issue at speed but its back now and much worse probably due to the much worse alignment The control arm bushings were missing! Yes, expect improvement with any kind of new bushings. Obvious torque steer is a rear end issue. Clearly there is something seriously wrong back there. How did you "check it out"? A crooked spoiler has nothing to do with handling. Alignment affects handling hugely. At least eyeball it before you destroy your tires. Do be aware that with poly bushings, factory alignment specs will feel uncomfortable. Factory settings allow for flex in the soft bushings. With stiffer bushings I always suggest zero toe, zero camber front and rear with 6 degrees of caster at the front. For the amount of work you readily do, you can easily do your own alignment. Long ago I did a demo at a meet to show what bump steer is. Bump steer on the 88 front is negligible. At 6 degrees caster it's very close to zero. I found that interesting but is apparently related to the extreme anti-dive geometry. It's a beautiful design. cartercarbaficionado JUN 10, 06:28 PM quote Originally posted by Yellow-88: The control arm bushings were missing! Yes, expect improvement with any kind of new bushings. Obvious torque steer is a rear end issue. Clearly there is something seriously wrong back there. How did you "check it out"? A crooked spoiler has nothing to do with handling. Alignment affects handling hugely. At least eyeball it before you destroy your tires. Do be aware that with poly bushings, factory alignment specs will feel uncomfortable. Factory settings allow for flex in the soft bushings. With stiffer bushings I always suggest zero toe, zero camber front and rear with 6 degrees of caster at the front. For the amount of work you readily do, you can easily do your own alignment. Long ago I did a demo at a meet to show what bump steer is. Bump steer on the 88 front is negligible. At 6 degrees caster it's very close to zero. I found that interesting but is apparently related to the extreme anti-dive geometry. It's a beautiful design. the rear end has poly bushings as well so who knows. no play in anything and the rear tires are pointed straight with 0 camber at all. already eyeballed the front but a shop needs to deal with it since I can't accurately set caster or camber and toe has to be set when those are at least close. also I'm pretty sure I know what my car us doing since its incredibly violent and bad enough that I had to park it until I get an alignment. maybe urs the fact I gave it litterally every degree of negative caster I could but it's about what it had previously so who knows. also if a crooked broken spoiler being replaced changed my handling above 65 miles an hour so drastically don't you think that maybe just MAYBE that actually is incredibly important to think about. especially since it didn't used to torque steer at all and I ended up replacing every engine mount which helped for exactly 20 miles before it went right back to garbage Yellow-88 JUN 11, 09:47 AM [/b] quote [B]Originally posted by cartercarbaficionado: the rear end has poly bushings as well so who knows. no play in anything and the rear tires are pointed straight with 0 camber at all. already eyeballed the front but a shop needs to deal with it since I can't accurately set caster or camber and toe has to be set when those are at least close. also I'm pretty sure I know what my car us doing since its incredibly violent and bad enough that I had to park it until I get an alignment. maybe urs the fact I gave it litterally every degree of negative caster I could but it's about what it had previously so who knows. also if a crooked broken spoiler being replaced changed my handling above 65 miles an hour so drastically don't you think that maybe just MAYBE that actually is incredibly important to think about. especially since it didn't used to torque steer at all and I ended up replacing every engine mount which helped for exactly 20 miles before it went right back to garbage With all due respect Carter ..... what are you saying? "Pointed straight ahead? Do you mean zero toe at the rear? How did you measure it? How did you measure camber? " .... its incredibly violent ..... " !!?? Maybe this explains that statement. " .... I gave it literally every degree of negative caster I could ..... " That's exactly backwards. Caster must be positive. " ... a crooked broken spoiler..." Do you mean the "wing" ? Maybe you could feel its effect at VERY high speed but if your tires are pointing in 4 different directions, you'd be too busy hanging on to the wheel to notice. This is the sentence that really puzzled me. " .... it didn't used to torque steer at all and I ended up replacing every engine mount which helped for exactly 20 miles before it went right back to garbage". Just plain ...what are you saying? A bit about me: One of my hobbies is chassis design. I absolutely understand alignment and "handling". cartercarbaficionado JUN 11, 06:47 PM it got aligned and handles better? still torque steering but now with no reason to do so. since it was on a lift every bushing and joint was checked for play and the fiero store upper balljoints already definitely aren't happy with life but maybe they just have to work the grease in? it's at least not trying to rip the wheel out of my hand over bumps at low speeds and not wandering with little effect from my steering wheel at high speeds and the shop agreed that I probably need a new rack. cartercarbaficionado JUN 11, 06:52 PM quote Originally posted by Yellow-88: [b][/b] With all due respect Carter ..... what are you saying? "Pointed straight ahead? Do you mean zero toe at the rear? How did you measure it? How did you measure camber? " .... its incredibly violent ..... " !!?? Maybe this explains that statement. " .... I gave it literally every degree of negative caster I could ..... " That's exactly backwards. Caster must be positive. " ... a crooked broken spoiler..." Do you mean the "wing" ? Maybe you could feel its effect at VERY high speed but if your tires are pointing in 4 different directions, you'd be too busy hanging on to the wheel to notice. This is the sentence that really puzzled me. " .... it didn't used to torque steer at all and I ended up replacing every engine mount which helped for exactly 20 miles before it went right back to garbage". Just plain ...what are you saying? A bit about me: One of my hobbies is chassis design. I absolutely understand alignment and "handling". it would help alot if I didn't mix up my terms while typing. I had given it every degree of positive caster I could on both sides hoping it might help. 0 toe was measured at the rear with the string method which is how the car was aligned before it hit the streets after the front end rebuild we did and wasn't too far off other than my chamber which I could tell was off but couldn't seem to get right. also when I say it went back to garbage I mean the changes had little effect or got worse, I thought it was fairly obvious but that might just be me hunter29 JUN 11, 08:16 PM What do you mean TFS ball joints aren't happy ?