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sand rail street driveability/swaying
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yitzac1990
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 6:52 am    Post subject: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

hello all, recently finished my buggy and am having a hard time keeping it straight on the street! is this a common problem for buggies? It seems to really want to sway left and right going down the street. its got 31x10.5 tires on rear, 165/80 tires on front, and a rack and pinion steering with no damper. Could the lack of a damper be the only problem? Should I switch back to stock type beetle steering (box and pitman arm)?

P.S. the rear of the buggy is pretty heavy, having a water cooled turbo motor, but I indexed the rear torsion bars to lift the rear, back to a "normal" stance.

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Dale M.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 7:35 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

What is toe-in settings .. By picture (maybe just camera perspective) it looks like you have toe-out and this will cause buggy to hunt where it wants to go...

Dale
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pullstart
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 7:44 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

How easy is it to lift your front end off the ground? I wonder if the extra weight behind the rear end has anything to do with it. Though my car is a 4 seater, I'm hoping when I swap in the EJ25 engine that my 3x3 rear arm kit will help with the additional weight.

Also, what is the width and backspacing of the front wheels? I had a set of wheels on my quad for about 10 minutes once with almost no backspacing that made the front end extremely easy to steer but even easier for a bump to tear the handlebars out of my hands.
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yitzac1990
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 8:19 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

i think the front wheels are toed slightly in actually. i still haven't given it a "proper" alignment, but it drives fine when i'm going slower, like through my neighborhood or something.

wheels are 4" wide, I am pretty sure they are the Empi wheels, maybe 0 backspace?

I am kind of thinking the rear weight has something to do with it, and if thats the case, maybe there is not much I can do to improve straight line street driveability. But if a steering damper will help, I may go ahead and put one on. Or even switch back to actual beetle steering system.
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retterath
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 8:56 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

I run a water cooled engine in my baja, and it goes down the road perfectly straight. I'm thinking tow issue, front or back. Does it wander, or feel like it wants to spin out?
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Axitech
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 9:25 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

If you want to know if it's a weight bias issue, put a couple ratchet strap 'supports' on your front bars, turning them into a basket. Throw a couple of old car batteries in there and try it again.
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bikesndbugs
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 10:15 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

how are the ball joints? back when i had a ball joint beam my ball joints were shot and on the freeway it would drift around alot
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 10:18 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

Doesn't look like you have much caster, low caster will cause wondering and not wanting to return to center.
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2017 5:09 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

Lower the tire pressure in the front. My rail was doing the same thing. What is happening is without the weight of a normal front end the front tires are not sitting flat. I run about 15 psi.
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2017 6:42 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

Fix known problems first. If you know it needs an alignment do it. Then you eliminate that as a cause of your issue. And that includes the rear.
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yitzac1990
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 12:21 pm    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

what should front caster be?

I tried to get a pic of how the buggy currently sits and the caster of the front. How does this look? Is the shock supposed to be completely vertical? You can see it is pointing slightly forward, but the wheel hub is leaning slightly back.

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BFB
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 6:41 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

i never understand these threads. if your daily driver goes down the road goofy most people go get an alignment. theres no difference if its a buggy, pay $75 and get a professional alignment and they will tell you if you have wore out parts that need replaced. ive had several buggys and all of them i have alignments done on and they have all driven down the road fine, my current rail is running radials in the rear, bias ply in the front, and and the king pins have some play in them but i drive it 80 mph down the highway and it drives as well as my daily driver
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pallen
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 7:29 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

yitzac1990 wrote:
what should front caster be?

I tried to get a pic of how the buggy currently sits and the caster of the front. How does this look? Is the shock supposed to be completely vertical? You can see it is pointing slightly forward, but the wheel hub is leaning slightly back.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


You could try adding caster shims on the lower mount.
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 7:43 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

richardcraineum wrote:
i never understand these threads. if your daily driver goes down the road goofy most people go get an alignment. theres no difference if its a buggy, pay $75 and get a professional alignment and they will tell you if you have wore out parts that need replaced. ive had several buggys and all of them i have alignments done on and they have all driven down the road fine, my current rail is running radials in the rear, bias ply in the front, and and the king pins have some play in them but i drive it 80 mph down the highway and it drives as well as my daily driver


Well some people actually like to work on their own stuff. A tape measure and angle finder will get you the same results as a 75$ alignment and if you cant figure out what's wore out on your own you might need to take up a new hobby.
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Fenix
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 7:55 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

pallen wrote:
richardcraineum wrote:
i never understand these threads. if your daily driver goes down the road goofy most people go get an alignment. theres no difference if its a buggy, pay $75 and get a professional alignment and they will tell you if you have wore out parts that need replaced. ive had several buggys and all of them i have alignments done on and they have all driven down the road fine, my current rail is running radials in the rear, bias ply in the front, and and the king pins have some play in them but i drive it 80 mph down the highway and it drives as well as my daily driver


Well some people actually like to work on their own stuff. A tape measure and angle finder will get you the same results as a 75$ alignment and if you cant figure out what's wore out on your own you might need to take up a new hobby.


Easy now guys. Some people like driving their cars and not working on them, others like to do both. Some like me are the type that have focused on the aspects of building rods that they like and were talented with and let the experts do the work in the areas we are not excited about...or in my case engines and I just don't speak the same language.


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Dale M.
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 8:36 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

Put a straight edge on ball joints and then a angle finder on straight edge, if you you have about 7° slant backwards at top you probably have decent amount of caster... Check toe in, you should have approximate 1/6 to 3/32 toe in in front wheels/tires...

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Shock angle is not a good indicator of caster...

Dale
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Dale M.
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 8:39 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

richardcraineum wrote:
i never understand these threads. if your daily driver goes down the road goofy most people go get an alignment. theres no difference if its a buggy, pay $75 and get a professional alignment and they will tell you if you have wore out parts that need replaced. ive had several buggys and all of them i have alignments done on and they have all driven down the road fine, my current rail is running radials in the rear, bias ply in the front, and and the king pins have some play in them but i drive it 80 mph down the highway and it drives as well as my daily driver


Trouble is finding a shop that will deal with something that is not a "standard" automobile... Most will take one look and say "cant do it"....

Dale
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BFB
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 11:01 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

pallen wrote:
richardcraineum wrote:
i never understand these threads. if your daily driver goes down the road goofy most people go get an alignment. theres no difference if its a buggy, pay $75 and get a professional alignment and they will tell you if you have wore out parts that need replaced. ive had several buggys and all of them i have alignments done on and they have all driven down the road fine, my current rail is running radials in the rear, bias ply in the front, and and the king pins have some play in them but i drive it 80 mph down the highway and it drives as well as my daily driver


Well some people actually like to work on their own stuff. A tape measure and angle finder will get you the same results as a 75$ alignment and if you cant figure out what's wore out on your own you might need to take up a new hobby.


first, i'm sorry that you cannot afford to pay to have work done but theres no reason to take it out on other people than can. and actually, i get my alignments for free, mostly because my mechanic buddies like that they get a hell of a deal on their paint work because i own a body shop. and seeing as i have been in the automotive industry for almost 30yrs, i eat, sleep and shit car stuff every day, its no where near a hobby. how about you? and if you think a tape measure and and angle finder can compare to a $30,000 alignment rack, your an idiot, try and tell someone you can do an alignment on their car with a tape measure and see how many people let you.
now, if you read my post pertaining to the original poster and stop taking it so personal, it makes sense, he says he cant figure out why its doing what its doing.. so i say, an alignment is cheap let the professional diagnose it. same as if you have a fuel injected motor , dont have a scanner , and cant figure out why its not running. according to your train of thought you'd just keep throwing parts at it until you luck into finding the problem, i say pay someone to scan it and then replace the part. that there is what we call smart thinkin
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BFB
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 11:07 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

[quote="

Trouble is finding a shop that will deal with something that is not a "standard" automobile... Most will take one look and say "cant do it"....

Dale[/quote]

i could see that, just have to try to find a smaller "mom and pop" shop instead of a franchise chain. something else ive done when a shop wasnt sure how to do the alignment on a buggy was tell them to set it up as vw beetle, length and width may be a little different but it gives the tech a good place to start and they can figure it out from there
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 11:12 am    Post subject: Re: sand rail street driveability/swaying Reply with quote

richardcraineum wrote:
pallen wrote:
richardcraineum wrote:
i never understand these threads. if your daily driver goes down the road goofy most people go get an alignment. theres no difference if its a buggy, pay $75 and get a professional alignment and they will tell you if you have wore out parts that need replaced. ive had several buggys and all of them i have alignments done on and they have all driven down the road fine, my current rail is running radials in the rear, bias ply in the front, and and the king pins have some play in them but i drive it 80 mph down the highway and it drives as well as my daily driver


Well some people actually like to work on their own stuff. A tape measure and angle finder will get you the same results as a 75$ alignment and if you cant figure out what's wore out on your own you might need to take up a new hobby.


first, i'm sorry that you cannot afford to pay to have work done but theres no reason to take it out on other people than can. and actually, i get my alignments for free, mostly because my mechanic buddies like that they get a hell of a deal on their paint work because i own a body shop. and seeing as i have been in the automotive industry for almost 30yrs, i eat, sleep and shit car stuff every day, its no where near a hobby. how about you? and if you think a tape measure and and angle finder can compare to a $30,000 alignment rack, your an idiot, try and tell someone you can do an alignment on their car with a tape measure and see how many people let you.
now, if you read my post pertaining to the original poster and stop taking it so personal, it makes sense, he says he cant figure out why its doing what its doing.. so i say, an alignment is cheap let the professional diagnose it. same as if you have a fuel injected motor , dont have a scanner , and cant figure out why its not running. according to your train of thought you'd just keep throwing parts at it until you luck into finding the problem, i say pay someone to scan it and then replace the part. that there is what we call smart thinkin


It's a custom rail, 99% of shops won't even attempt to align it and by the looks of the pics it was built with no caster. So unless you're at a custom VW shop that also stocks VW specific caster shims they will say yep casters out, nothing we can do.

The OP is asking what needs addressed to be fixed, not what shop to take it to.
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