Yea the handlin is good atm

I am sure tho that on a right hand turn its nothin special but on a left turn it flics round. I mean proper flix. Like the back is turning too.

Can't see it being the rack. It was fine on older car.

That 51 plate car would of been good in america. Just needed cruise. You could let it go and it would go straight and tru longer than any car I've ever known with no correction needed and the wheels were perfectly ballanced.

Shame it had been bumped tho.

Billy

Well it has to be something like that as most of the setup is new, how much did you drive the other car to be sure the rack was ok on there? Remember all your renewed parts will make the issue more promounced unlike on the old car!

The fact it had been bumped is not a great sign for straight parts

Well it has to be something like that as most of the setup is new, how much did you drive the other car to be sure the rack was ok on there? Remember all your renewed parts will make the issue more promounced unlike on the old car!

I prob did 2k in 2.5 weeks in it.

The fact it had been bumped is not a great sign for straight parts

THe car was bumped and a write off back in 06 iirc then fixed and Andy (iirc) got it and did all the stuff to it.

Beleive me it was sound there and like I said I have never driven a vehicle that has been so stable and smooth and drive straight ever lol.

might be the bump straightened i the car lol

yup i remember, i drove his car too (although not as much as you did) before you bought it,

i was just wondering, if it was bumped and damaged the rack, then somehow it was jigged out, and the fault was compensated for perhaps, then now the rack is in a straight car its causing issue again...just a thought

Mark, the fwd tt did not have a quickrack, only the 225's

I thought so to Luca,

I am not sure what TT the rack i got came off, and have emailed the guy but no response as yet. Although it does not have any of the expected P/N on it, that can clearly link it to the Audi quick rack. Interesting though it has identical numbers to chicken_eyebrow's that he quoted as 8N2 422 055 and 1J2 422 105 and was off a 2002 Quattro 1.8T TT (225 bhp)

linked to this thread. http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/170937-steering-rack/

I found the P/N "8N2 422 055 AM" on mine after scratching off some dirt.

So what the hell that is supposed to be I don't know. I will try and manually turn the rack when i get some tie rods to see it it is 2.5 and then i will at least know for sure.

8n is def audi isnt it, i think 1j is golf though.

Billy, if you havent fitted the washer to space the balljoint in the hub then there may be lateral movement of the wishbones, the washer is not used so much for geometry but to allow the balljoint taper to seat correctly in the vrs hub and presumably stop movement back and forth of the balljoint in the hub itself.

As you havent got this i think you may have to try process of elimination and fit them. This WAS required (and is recommended) in the few golf conversions that i saw done a few yrs ago before doing mine, and is fitted to mine (i have no issues with my setup)

When Andy did his after seeing my setup i did tell him he should do it too, but when he fitted for some reason he decided to leave it out as didnt seem to have any issues, doesnt mean it was right though!

Are you sure your wheel bearings are OK?

Sometimes, they make the car pull a little when the start to fail. Also makes accurate wheel alignment impossible

OET, the washer is not a problem mate as I have TT hub assemblies. My entire front setup is TT now.

RW: the front bearings are brand new mate and the rear beam is off the 51 plate car. There is no movement in them and no noise to suggest a bearing problem.

I am in now waitin for them to give it a full alignment from scratch so we shall see.

Billy

UPDATE

The rear beam is out. 4mm on drivers side and 1mm on passengers. He can't move the rear beam neither.

He suggested getting some spare brackets and making the holes slightly longer to allow some movement.

This car is startin to **** me off lol

Update:

right then, after a full day of trying to sort this out. we got nowhere with the rear beam really, as the lasers still read 1mm and 4mm of toe in. I got confused tho. the passengers side is the one that is 4.5mm in. and the drivers is the 1.25mm in.

With that I would say the rear beam is bent somewhere?

TODAY:

Went in to the Garage and they put it on the Ramp and attached the laser kit to do the rear beam alignment. The meter showed 4.5mm on the Drivers side bar so thats the mesurment of the Passengers side wheel. and 1.25mm on the Passengers side bar so that is the drivers side reading.

he tried to straighten it up but couldnt move the mounting brackets.

after a while of trying the thought was to make the holes in the brakcets bigger slightly to allow for more movement. So as to not destroy my original ones I went off to a scrappy to get some more, £25 for the pair off a mk 4 Golf Estate. before I left the garage tho he realligned the fronts to the rear and it was out. we didnt move the rear beam at all in the morning so what he did was just straighten the steering out as it was and OH NO typical it was out which led him to beleive that Heath Tyres that did it last only aligned the fronts up with the car and not the rear wheels. This actually made the steering straight but the car still drifted Left when you let go of the steering. This made the car easier to control tho as you knew where straight was.

Took the brackets off the car in the scrappy

Went back and had a good old chat with Paul while he had his new car sorted out(Glad you left smiling mate) After this they got to work drilling the brackets out a bit and swapping them over. Word of warning tho, one of the brackets is also the retaining mount for the brake line and is a pig to undo.

Once done we set to work again trying to straighten it out, and no matter what we tried the same measurements were the same. we moved the beam about and tightened it up then I went out on the road to see what it had done.

OMG, this made the car drive pritty much the opposite of what it did before we touched it.

so we got it back up and re aligned the fronts to the rear.

this is now how the car is due to the time it was,

Steering straight = drives pritty damn close to straight

let go of steering = steering turns slightly to the left and car goes that way too.

on the hole tho it is MUCH MUCH BETTER and a lot more drivable.

Cornering:

Before:

Turn a Left hand Bend, car snapped round and no understeer at all and was really scary if you were not ready for it, (felt a bit like oversteer)

Turn a Right hand bend, car felt like it didnt want to go round and it was a fight to get it round, turning this way on a roundabout I had lots of understeer, again not good. felt bad.

After:

Left Turn, still snapps round but feels like it should, not like the back is gonna overtake you, feels planted and a lot more manageable. well feels damn good

Right Turn, still not going round as it should and a tad of understeer but not anywhere near as bad as it was.

One thing I did notice, while walking back to the car in Tesco car park, I was about 10-15m away from the car and it did look like the Passengers side rear wheel is pointing Inwards so I went to look at the other side and the drivers side looked like it was pointing straight ahead and as it should. This leads me to think again that the rear pin on the passengers side might be bent slightly?

The car looked like someone had run into the side of the wheel and bent it in.

this is bugging me now, I think I will be putting my std beam back on with some parts off the other one. basically Ill be stripping both and making one good one I think. cant see the actuall beam being bent tho? I am hoping its the end bits taht bolt on. It doesnt seem like a bearing either as that would have play in it but everything is solid and the measurments never change.

Billy

Update:

right then, after a full day of trying to sort this out. we got nowhere with the rear beam really, as the lasers still read 1mm and 4mm of toe in. I got confused tho. the passengers side is the one that is 4.5mm in. and the drivers is the 1.25mm in.

With that I would say the rear beam is bent somewhere?

TODAY:

Went in to the Garage and they put it on the Ramp and attached the laser kit to do the rear beam alignment. The meter showed 4.5mm on the Drivers side bar so thats the mesurment of the Passengers side wheel. and 1.25mm on the Passengers side bar so that is the drivers side reading.

he tried to straighten it up but couldnt move the mounting brackets.

after a while of trying the thought was to make the holes in the brakcets bigger slightly to allow for more movement. So as to not destroy my original ones I went off to a scrappy to get some more, £25 for the pair off a mk 4 Golf Estate. before I left the garage tho he realligned the fronts to the rear and it was out. we didnt move the rear beam at all in the morning so what he did was just straighten the steering out as it was and OH NO typical it was out which led him to beleive that Heath Tyres that did it last only aligned the fronts up with the car and not the rear wheels. This actually made the steering straight but the car still drifted Left when you let go of the steering. This made the car easier to control tho as you knew where straight was.

Took the brackets off the car in the scrappy

Went back and had a good old chat with Paul while he had his new car sorted out(Glad you left smiling mate) After this they got to work drilling the brackets out a bit and swapping them over. Word of warning tho, one of the brackets is also the retaining mount for the brake line and is a pig to undo.

Once done we set to work again trying to straighten it out, and no matter what we tried the same measurements were the same. we moved the beam about and tightened it up then I went out on the road to see what it had done.

OMG, this made the car drive pritty much the opposite of what it did before we touched it.

so we got it back up and re aligned the fronts to the rear.

this is now how the car is due to the time it was,

Steering straight = drives pritty damn close to straight

let go of steering = steering turns slightly to the left and car goes that way too.

on the hole tho it is MUCH MUCH BETTER and a lot more drivable.

Cornering:

Before:

Turn a Left hand Bend, car snapped round and no understeer at all and was really scary if you were not ready for it, (felt a bit like oversteer)

Turn a Right hand bend, car felt like it didnt want to go round and it was a fight to get it round, turning this way on a roundabout I had lots of understeer, again not good. felt bad.

After:

Left Turn, still snapps round but feels like it should, not like the back is gonna overtake you, feels planted and a lot more manageable. well feels damn good

Right Turn, still not going round as it should and a tad of understeer but not anywhere near as bad as it was.

One thing I did notice, while walking back to the car in Tesco car park, I was about 10-15m away from the car and it did look like the Passengers side rear wheel is pointing Inwards so I went to look at the other side and the drivers side looked like it was pointing straight ahead and as it should. This leads me to think again that the rear pin on the passengers side might be bent slightly?

The car looked like someone had run into the side of the wheel and bent it in.

this is bugging me now, I think I will be putting my std beam back on with some parts off the other one. basically Ill be stripping both and making one good one I think. cant see the actuall beam being bent tho? I am hoping its the end bits taht bolt on. It doesnt seem like a bearing either as that would have play in it but everything is solid and the measurments never change.

Billy

Does sound like someone or something has hit the wheel at a angle and may of bent the wishbone/rear beam and the combination of those has caused the effect you have. Have you always felt the car do that Billy or is it recent, or due to any changes you have had done. As you have never bought this issue up before something has changed buddy.

Hi Billy, Nice to have a chat with you today & put a face to the name.

Funny I was just thinking about this & you mentioning that the car had taken a knock, & I was coming up with the same conclusion that maybe there had been impact to the wheel on that side which could of bent something. Glad you made some progress at least & the car is a bit more drivable. BTW I have heard of a beam being bent before so don't rule that out.

Light bulb!

The way we were testing the rear wheels was wrong, we were aligning them to each other on a fixed axel that is not adjustable. Were were actually lining them up to the axel beam and not the car. How stupid of me not to notice.

Because the wheels are in a fixed position on the axel the measurments will always be the same.

Mark: before I put the TT rack on it seemed fine. After tho A n A in cardiff never aligned it right. Mind you the guy who put the steering wheel straight didn't sit in car to do it, he used the machine to tell him when the wheels were centered. That's why I think there was no consistency with the position of the steering wheel.

Since putting the rear beam on tho that's when the car started pulling LEFT. When fitting tho I had to remove the drivers side bracket as the bolts on my car were fitted pointing out so the fuel tank was in the way.hence why I thought it was out of line.

The previous car had a knock on the front passengers side so in that it might of hit the rear wheel too causing this slight Toe in on front.

To save swapping the whole beam I will take the wheel mountings off mine and swap the over as mine has never had a bump so I am hopin its just that and not the entire beam.

Ill do that now n get off back down to them.

Billy

What I will do next:

At the min the car is a lot more drivable so there is no major rush.

I think I will first take the hub and assembly off my beam and put the whole thing on to the beam off the other car that I put on to mine due to it having superPRO bushes.

I will then pop back and just put the lasers on to see if the measurment has changed at all.

On this tho. Has anyone else got any readings for their rear wheels? I am just wondering weather its the passengers side one that's been pushed to toe in or the drivers side been pushed out.

Also has anyone got any idea how to align the beam to the car?

I was thinkin the holes will be center so if I took the beam off them and loosened them then pulled them both down as far as pos then it would be straight?

If not then its a case of making a plumb line from the center front to center rear then one at 90 deg to that to line the brackets up.

One last thing, IF I do need to put my beam back on what bushes should I fit? Should I just do the Fabia ones or go for powerflex or superPRO?

Billy

Billy if i were you buddy, i would take the whole rear beam off the car and re fit your old beam, and at least get the car to a std position where you know your old beam was ok. To mess about to try and fix a suspect rear beam seems a little bit of a waste. The VRS Rear beam is not really adjustable apart from any very minute play between the bolts, bearing and hubs, so you are not going to pick up much if your alignment is that far out. Also to start cutting holes in the rear beam you have on the car is also not advisable as if the beam is bent you are never going to rectify that by trying to get the beam centralised.

Bite the bullet and put yours back on matey.

Super pro Rear beam bushes are great if you can afford them, else Seat Cupra R or Fabia VRS are good

I got a printout of mine some where mate and the rears are showing one side about 4mm in front of the other as well

I think it's posted on here somewhere, be about a year ago iirc.

Mark,

The prob is that I had to remove one of the brackets off the car and there is movement in them. the holes give about 3-4mm of movement if you loosen the bolts. The prob was that we were tryinh to align the rear wheels but moving the beam doesnt do that as the wheels stay in the same position on the beam lol, so no matter where we put the beam on the car the measurments were the same. which points to something being bent very slightly. 3mm diff tho is a bit. so to sort this I will just put my beam back on.

then major thing now tho is how to get the beam lined up with the car. thats what I really need to concentrate on as that is why the car was tracking off by so much as when we moved it the car changed totally and then we tracked up the fronts and it changed again, each time getting better.

I think tho that due to the more toe in on one side than the other we are also just compromising to compensate for the mismatch in toe?

I could take the rear beam to them and put some discs and wheels on it and tighten them up and just measure the Toe on it lol? thats an Idea, the will tell me if its a straight beam as if one side is more out than the other then something is wrong?

then I can swap the beams if there is. the trouble is tho gettin the beam in line with the car? for that I need to think of a way of doing it.

cheers

billy

Measure the diagonals of the beam from the centre of the hole under the spring to the inside of the bolt that holds the bush to the bracket on the opposite side. These lengths will be the same unless the beam is damaged,

Cheers for the tip,ill try that.

After playin with it its now gone the other way.

I now need to turn slightly L to go straight and in the center position the car goes R. It feels like somethin is loose tho as it goes more sometimes and less others.

But the oone thing that is bugging me still is if you let go of the wheel it auto turns to the left by about 20 deg. The same amount as before. It always turns L from the car going straight it auto turns L by 20 deg ish.

I am thinkin this is due to the subframe not being in a central position.

I think what I need to do is actually start from the front of the car? do the camber and caster first and get them even both sides which will make it centre to the car. Then the rear can be centered to the fronts.

I have it in my head what I think should happen but its hard to type lol

Billy