Castor shims

[ashcloud]

Thanks for Your support.
I think it is not too difficult to take hub and disc of again if all is NOT well (not that I want to or better still,avoid it). I think I had to draw the line somewhere because my vacation is coming to an end on the 14 and on the 15th I am off to Shanghai. This was the reason for the decision to go ahead and get slowly done with it. I have "centered" all settings so there will be more effort necessary to get it perfect (if possible). I will keep posting the results and probably ask more questions.

I have the axle and the wishbones, bumpstops and balljoint put together and waiting for final tightening. So tomorrow I will put both uprights together and try to mount them onto the wishbones.
I am not sure if I get it in this week because I will spend some time to clean up and adjust the steering components. First I thought of overhauling all of it but since there is no play anywhere and the steering box runs smooth and easy I will refrain from messing it up

I did find NO OIL in it but a lot of grease, since it is supposed to be topped of I wonder if I should flush it and replenish with oil or just fill it with the correct oil and leave the grease in? The Idler seems to be smooth too. Any other things to pay attention?

No a DME (Distance measuring equippment) is not a NoGo since we have so many ways (2 X-checking GPS) to get the a precise position or the distance to a desired point that it is fine without (but still used). I think that Ground based navigation will eventually go the way of the DoDo.
Bernhard

[piman]

Hello Bernhard,

a slight diversion; I presume that ILS will still be ground based in the near future or are the boffins finding alternative ways of carrying out that process?

Alec

[ashcloud]

I think it will be still there for some time to come, but they seem to work on a combination Ground/Air based system to use SatNav for initial guidance and later a precision ground based system (close to the runway for centering)
At this point ILS works very good but it also costs a lot to maintain and we all know that such things are always in some managers view.

I stopped reading Aviation Magazines a long time ago and if one or the other thing finally arrives I receive training and then work with it.

Whith a CAT IIIB (ILS) system our minimum is: runway visual range of 125m and a decision height above the runway of 20'. With this condition all You see is 1 (ONE!!!!) centerline light to confirm You are there (scarry). This is not much considering that a landing MD-11 weighs 222tons on the approach and blasts along 165kts/190MPH.

There is also CAT IIIC with 0/0 (very expensive to maintain) but if I would be in an end of life situation our system lands automatically and never knows if we had seen a runway or not, but until such day we fly according to the rules.
Actually our airplane can Autoland with any approved ILS but the precision is not monitored, so there is no guarantee that all received info is precise to touchdown (e.g. another Airplane taxies close by the Touchdown zone can "bend" the Localizer signal enough to put You besides the runway) so for these very low visibility approaches all is monitored by multiple systems.
Hope it helps

BTW: what torque would you use for the bolt on disc to hub (used 80NM so far)
Bernhard

[piman]

Hello Bernhard,

I can imagine that it is very difficult for a pilot to just allow the electronics to bring the aircraft to the ground, particularly if visibility is very poor!

The Jaguar manual and Haynes Jaguar manual are poor in giving torque figures for some reason. However my Triumph manual gives the figure of 30 to 35 ft/lbs for a 3/8" fastener and 55 to 60 ft/lbs for a 7/16", translating to about 45 Newton/Metres and 80 Newton/Metres respectively, I'm guessing the larger fastener would be used on the Jaguar?

Alec

[ashcloud]

Absolute perfect, it is a 7/16 and so I am dead on with the torque.For the Locnut on the back of the axle I have used 100Nm which should be fine since the thread on the axle is 5/8th and there the nut would go before the axle. But it worked fine.
Now about the electronics: honest, there is no chance (other then on the Microsoft flight sim) where I would have the guts to in, seeing nothing.
We, like all humans are very much visually oriented and once there is just dark gray matter and you start looking out the window (away from the instruments), just small pressure on the controls will bank the aircraft or pitch up (subconcious fear of hitting the ground) which we all have a tendency to do.
So the whole thing is very much a coordinated procedure between the two pilots where each has an exact sequence of task to complete to make it work, and with all system performing correctly, IT WILL LAND (Boeing says )))).
I dont want to fill the forum here but if You are interested send me Your email and I write it down for You.

bernhardlist@hotmail.com

[Martec]

Hi Bernhard,

The lubricant in the steering box (manual rather than power steering) is cross between oil and grease. I bought a litre of it 12 years ago from 'Penrite' for £10 and it is still on the shelf as I fitted a power steering system instead, I've just shook it and it is still a semi-fluid/grease.

I would suggest that IF you want to change it, do it whilst the box is out on the deck rather than wait until it is in the car.

It sounds as though you have got the brake discs just right, I'm sure it will feel OK on the road.

Best wishes
Brian

[ashcloud]

Thanks I will replace the oil/grease, have to find a store who has that.
One question to the brakes: I have just installed the new brakes and new pads and they touch on both sides. Cooper says that this is normal on new brakes (brake in 150 km) and the disc thickness (9.5mm) is standard. Any experience in this department? Just feels odd.
Bernhard

[oldtimer]

Hi Bernard,
Some friction between pad and disc is normal. I'm not sure what stage of build you are at, I am guessing that there is no hydraulic oil in the system yet, if so pull the pads out and press the pistons further in that will allow the disc to rotate freely. I would leave well alone. Foot brake pressure applies the pads onto the discs, it is only the flex in the piston seals that allow the pads to ease off. There is always light contact between the pad with the disc. This is the very reason for ensuring minimum disc run out because the abrasive pads will cause irregular disc wear even though the brakes are not applied.

Oldtimer

PS Is there something missing from your Email address above or have I entered it incorrectly

[ashcloud]

No it looks correct
bernhardlist@hotmail.com

About the brakes: still on the bench but finished and torqued and safetied.
The pads touch lightly.
Take a look:

[oldtimer]

Hi Bernhard,
That all looks superb - well done.

Oldtimer

[ashcloud]

Thanks
right now I am trying to get the grime of the steering components, I look like a pig.
Maybe tomorrow I have the last few (small parts) to put the suspension units together for dry fitting and final torqueing.
I will be back on the forum on Monday or Tuesday so bear with me and I hope to post some good progress.
Greetings,
Bernhard

[ashcloud]

Gentlemen!
Sorry that it took me a while to get back but the flying has kept me busy and my car progress stalled. But today I got a ton of parts and on Monday I should have the rest back from Powdercoating.
Oh maybe I jumped a bit ahead, here some news:
A few days ago I could not keep my fingers of the steering box and the idler plus all the attachments. Trying to change the oil I opened the topscrew and nothing came out, I could just see thick grease. I had found some original Castrol D104 on ebay and checked the viscosity, very different. So here the little engineer had to open the top and Wow, green slime from Mars is probably a fair statement or maybe warm chewinggum on shoe soles. Unbelievable. Now I started to remove that stuff ..... I dont want to go into those details, just 50 years old elastic stuff.
Now here I loosend up the spindle screws a bit to spray brake cleaner into the bearing and POP, out comes one of the bearing balls. Sh..t. Now trying to put it back in, released 9 balls on the opposit side. This did it. Now this screamed overhaul.
The result can be seen on the following pictures (just temporäry fitted since I am still cutting sealing papers for the shims.
Just could not resist! More information when I am back home again on the weekend.

[ashcloud]

Hi Martec
I just started to do some Tracking/Caster/Camberadjustments. This is just preliminary until I have actually driven the car again and I will go to a shop to have it measured correctly for finetuning.
At the moment I seem to have roughly zero caster, still a touch of positive camber and the Kingpin (steering angle) seems to be top-in bottom-out (but cannot by adjusted).
Now in order to get the Camber to almost zero I have a total of 4shims at each position (those where all that SNGBarratt had available), so in order to get 1degree negative camber it would require double the number, is this correct? Also I get he zeró caster with the shims evenly on both sides but on Your pictures it looks as if You have all Your shims in the front (meaning You have a positive caster. How does the car drive with that? (normaly it should be 1/2 degree negative or zero)
Bernhard

[Martec]

Hi Bernhard,

The front suspension on the MkII is pretty basic but also infinitely adjustable. As I've said mine is adjusted a long way from standard to make it work as I wanted. It is a delight to drive through the twisty roads of Lincolnshire, one because of the power steering it is light, two it is totally predictable the front sticks to the road and the back can be moved out a little (power oversteer) to help in the tight bends. This is down to the right arrangement of springs and antiroll bar plus the camber, castor and toe in it needs.

For settings the toe in has the top priority, then camber and along way back the castor. Because the original settings were
toe in parallel to 1/16" toe in
camber zero to 1 degree positive
Castor plus 1/2 to minus 1/2 a degree

Because the front subframe/axle is now 50 years old and may have been bent slightly or twisted a bit and you are moving beyond what was intended then you need to shim up the top wishbone link until you get what you require. I ended up making the extra shims that I needed from flat strip steel and using longer bolts.

Because the wishbones are to a limited extent trailing (approx. 10 to 30 degrees???) then as you add shims to the top wishbone pivot bar then you also increase the negative castor i.e. the top ball joint is moved in but also forward (you want it moving IN and Backwards), so you move the shims either side the ball joint to move it backwards. As I wanted more positive castor (ball joint move backwards) then I ran out of ball joint adjustment and had to resort to unequal shimming on the top pivot bar i.e. more shims between the rear bolts than the front bolts. The book says this must not be done, but mine have been in place for over ten years without any problem. remember the bottom wishbone is taking all the spring and body weight and the top wishbone is just a guide and takes some loading from heavy braking.

With the camber about right the castor can be fine tuned to get it equal each side with the ball joint shims. My records show a setting of 1/2 to 1 degree negative camber and 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 degrees of castor (but that is to allow for light power steering) I would think less castor for manual steering, as standard 1/2 a degree.

As you can see it needs to be set on the car then driven around the roads to settle and then checked and adjusted again. I also used toe-in of 1/16" to 1/8" and it is now very stable on the motorway.

Best of luck

Brian

[ashcloud]

Thanks Brian
I will set it somewhere between the factory settings and Yours to start out. After a few days I will have it checked at a shop to see what it actually is.
I am a bit pressed for time since I have a "date" on the 17th at the tuning shop to have it put on a dyno and tested to get the actual torque curve and performance values so I can write a matching pre-ignition curve for the distributor. Also I think that I don't have the correct needles (TL) in my carbs and need to do some tests under load to get that right too.
Greetings from sunny Bangalore India
Bernhard