Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Car Chat => Topic started by: Osprey on 01 October 2011, 21:56:59
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I've had a noise like dead drop links (drop dead links?) for over a year. (Dugga dugga dugga?) Never got around to replacing them because WiM said they were fine, I couldn't feel any play, and I assumed it was just one of those mystery suspension noises. Anyway, since I had my head in the wheel arches today I thought I might as well replace them anyway.
Yay - noise is gone :y :y :y
Moral of the story - if it sounds like drop links - gentle clonking on undulating roads at lowish speeds - replace them regardless. It's cheap and easy.
BuyPartsBy on eBay are currently selling two Contitech drop links for £12.95 delivered. Dunno how they can do this - the postage alone is £5.67 - but it isn't a typo. Ill let you know if they give up the ghost after 500 miles! :)
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Been to WIM twice,,,,, front tyres still wearing on the outside & after last visit the steering wheel point to 1 o'clock :( :( :( :( :(
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Been to WIM twice,,,,, front tyres still wearing on the outside & after last visit the steering wheel point to 1 o'clock :( :( :( :( :(
I am not impressed with WIM myself :(
Maybe getting in touch with them and letting them know may help, although it didn't help me being honest >:(
Nigel Langs are nothing sort of Excellent but they are in Bolton :)
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Might look daft here but here goes anyway.... What is this wim place all about ... Tin hat is already on by the way ;) :)
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Been to WIM twice,,,,, front tyres still wearing on the outside & after last visit the steering wheel point to 1 o'clock :( :( :( :( :(
I am not impressed with WIM myself :(
Maybe getting in touch with them and letting them know may help, although it didn't help me being honest >:(
Nigel Langs are nothing sort of Excellent but they are in Bolton :)
I am ............. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Might look daft here but here goes anyway.... What is this wim place all about ... Tin hat is already on by the way ;) :)
Here you go, click: http://www.blackboots.co.uk/
HTH :y
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I went the first time because the tyres were wearing,,,,,,, bought new tyres, wishbones, droplinks, steering idler + 4 dampers & springs & noticed the new tyres were wearing on the outside after a few thousand miles :(
Went back & explained the situation. They did it again but this time the steering wheel wasn't straight,,, really annoying :(
The tyres are now nearly knackered on the outside but have about 5mm tread across the rest.
Waste of £120 >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
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Cheers Seth :y
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Wheels In Motion - steering geometry specialists in Chesham, Bucks. Seemingly the only people to have thought about what geometry settings actually work on 10+ year old Omegas.
Actually I have no beef with them - I couldn't feel any play myself, even after careful jacking up on a flat surface. And they certainly made mine drive straight and solved my tyre wear problem.
:y
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I went the first time because the tyres were wearing,,,,,,, bought new tyres, wishbones, droplinks, steering idler + 4 dampers & springs & noticed the new tyres were wearing on the outside after a few thousand miles :(
Went back & explained the situation. They did it again but this time the steering wheel wasn't straight,,, really annoying :(
The tyres are now nearly knackered on the outside but have about 5mm tread across the rest.
Waste of £120 >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
I did something similar to you... all the suspension, new tyres so with everyone going on how good WIM are, so I took it to be set up whilst I was down that way.. Some young youth did the work on the car. Paid £70 odd then off I went to the place I needed to be at a particular time. On the Motorway so was driving straight the car was pulling heavily to the left and the steering wheel was turning right... Did not have time to return back there.... The following day I called Nigel Langs in Bolton, who booked me in. I paid about £85. The car drove straight as an arrow plus the steering wheel was straight.... I now had two print outs of my camber which to me was Double Dutch, so phoned this Tony Bones. Explained to him that I had been a few days earlier and what was happening with our car, also that I had been to Nigel Langs who had put it right.. I then read out what WIM's print out was then Nigel Langs... he said there was a total difference and would get back to me after he had taken my phone number... I bet that was 12 months ago, although I have PM'd him and yet he did open the PM but did not reply....
So they do not get my Vote at all I'm afraid >:( >:(
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Cheers Seth :y
No problem bud! ;)
I'm speaking purely from personal experience here ......
It's roughly a 350-mile round trip for moi (plus a day written off!), and I was impressed with the quality of their work. After experiencing the aftermath of local monkeys efforts at aligning several TDs that I look after, I considered the money extremely well-spent.
I was also extremely well-treated at WIM too! :y
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Cheers Seth :y
No problem bud! ;)
I'm speaking purely from personal experience here ......
It's roughly a 350-mile round trip for moi (plus a day written off!), and I was impressed with the quality of their work. After experiencing the aftermath of local monkeys efforts at aligning several TDs that I look after, I considered the money extremely well-spent.
I was also extremely well-treated at WIM too! :y
I am pleased for you :y
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forgot to say the car has pulled left since i got 2 years ago, still does that aswell >:(
It is annoying as the car is spot on. Everything works apart from the drivers heated seat :y
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Cheers Seth :y
No problem bud! ;)
I'm speaking purely from personal experience here ......
It's roughly a 350-mile round trip for moi (plus a day written off!), and I was impressed with the quality of their work. After experiencing the aftermath of local monkeys efforts at aligning several TDs that I look after, I considered the money extremely well-spent.
I was also extremely well-treated at WIM too! :y
I am pleased for you :y
Thank you Great One! ;D
(Sorry for the hi-jack! :))
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I too am very happy with WIM, they wear the only ones to sort my initial tyre wear, and I've always left with the car pointing straight, and running true, maybe with the exception of last time, when we might have overcooked the camber, and in tramlines bad (we were experimenting with lowered cars)
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I went the first time because the tyres were wearing,,,,,,, bought new tyres, wishbones, droplinks, steering idler + 4 dampers & springs & noticed the new tyres were wearing on the outside after a few thousand miles :(
Went back & explained the situation. They did it again but this time the steering wheel wasn't straight,,, really annoying :(
The tyres are now nearly knackered on the outside but have about 5mm tread across the rest.
Waste of £120 >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
Ime...I think fitting new springs can cause the outside wear on the front. Springs take a time to settle to their specific ride hight. How long? who knows, but I guess about a month should see most of the settling done.
Reason it causes outer edge wear is the omega is very sensative to ride hight because it affects the camber setting, increasing camber as the ride hight lowers. Excessive camber causes INSIDE edge wear. But here's the thing, as i understand it, when camber increases this affects the toe setting, causing toe in UNLESS the track rods are shortened to retrieve correct toe setting again.
Think along the lines of, if the top of the wheels lean in, then the steering tie rods have to be shortened as well, because they are rearward of the front axle point, leaning the wheel top in means the wheel also must toe in as well, it has to.
This is why wim deal with the omegas front settings in order of caster(subrame position, this must be correct first as altering it will cock up camber and toe, but not relevant to this issue) then camber(because leaning the wheel in affects track rod length, they need to be shortened) then last of all toe once caster and camber are correct.
Toe in has caused your outside edger wear, resulted from springs settling as they do, which increased camber which in turn caused excessive toe in. So I guess there "may" have been inside edge wear from excess camber, although probably not massive, along with outside edger wear caused by excess toe(front wheels like this / ^ \ when viewed from above arrow showing forward direction)
Hope I've explained that clearly. Understanding it us one thing, conveying it to others is quite another. :-\
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This also explains bump steer on the omega. A bump decreases ride hight, ride hight alters camber(not the setting but naturally as the wheel rises) which in ceases toe which feeds back to the steering wheel. As I understand it...?
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This also explains bump steer on the omega. A bump decreases ride hight, ride hight alters camber(not the setting but naturally as the wheel rises) which causes toe in which feeds back to the steering wheel. As I understand it...?
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Bump steer is down to the track rod not following the same arc as the wishbone(s) as the suspension undulates, or so I thought? Thus the relative length of the track rod changes, directly altering the toe?
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Yeah, so we're saying, if the suspension was re assembled with out the spring, and moved up and down by hand, we would see camber variation to positive at the bottom of the stroke with toe out?, to negative at the top of the stroke with toe in, due to the fixed length of the track rod....???
Or to put it another way track rod needs go be telescopic to maintain toe setting, not that you'd ever want that of course, just another way of looking at it...?
As I understand it..?
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You're right, I believe, Chris.
The proper fix isn't telescopic rod ends, mind, it's correct suspension design at the factory ;) of course I imagine on a production car the whole thing is a big barrel of compromises due to packaging/space/budget/etc (otherwise there'd be no McPherson strut cars at all, I reckon..)
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Wondering how desirable toe In during bump is? Maybe during cornering. :-\ But bump steer, definitely not. Or at least I find it excessive personally, I also wonder if some feel might be lost if eradicated completely...? :-\
Is the stub axle steering joint at the same hight at the steering knuckle? I'd go look but...mines bent and not here anyway. Pfff. ;D
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If the tie rod is exactly parallel with the suspension arms when travelling in a straight line, there should be no bumpsteer.
No idea how close Omega is to that...
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If the tie rod is exactly parallel with the suspension arms when travelling in a straight line, there should be no bumpsteer.
No idea how close Omega is to that...
Yep, so it's the vertical location of the rack/crossmember relative to the wishbone pivot point that's critical, along with the length of the wishbone against the length of the track rod from its inboard ball joint.
But you will still get some toe variation simply because the upright doesn't pivot on 2 equal length wishbones but a wishbone on the bottom and a strut at the top. You'll hopefully get a just a manageable amount around the "normal" range of suspension movement. If you lower it YMMV. ;)
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If the tie rod is exactly parallel with the suspension arms when travelling in a straight line, there should be no bumpsteer.
No idea how close Omega is to that...
Yep, so it's the vertical location of the rack/crossmember relative to the wishbone pivot point that's critical, along with the length of the wishbone against the length of the track rod from its inboard ball joint.
But you will still get some toe variation simply because the upright doesn't pivot on 2 equal length wishbones but a wishbone on the bottom and a strut at the top. You'll hopefully get a just a manageable amount around the "normal" range of suspension movement. If you lower it YMMV. ;)
Although camber on its own (and with a MacPherson strut, its all over the place anyway) will lead to pushes and pulls on the road, so toe bump steer is probably only a small part of it anyway :-\
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Yep, and, of course, we're assuming the body of the car is rigid. ;)
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Yep, and, of course, we're assuming the body of the car is rigid. ;)
Indeed -though to me, the Omega does seem pretty good in that respect. Mind you, with 1.7t on metal, it blooming well should be ;D
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The relationship between bump steer and natural camber and toe deflection are one and the same ime.
During previous ponderings under the car, the inner track rod ball joint and wb pivot appear to align. So to speak.
Stub axle pivot points, I may get a closer look at those in the coming weeks. (Sigh)
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I will have to take it back,,,,,,, its all very complicated :D
The front springs/dampers were replaced after my 2nd visit. :y
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Just bought two sets of drop links from buypartsbuy and hope to have the same result as o.p thanks for the tip fella. :y :y
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Here's hoping!
:y
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I've just gone and bought a pair too :y
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I went the first time because the tyres were wearing,,,,,,, bought new tyres, wishbones, droplinks, steering idler + 4 dampers & springs & noticed the new tyres were wearing on the outside after a few thousand miles :(
Went back & explained the situation. They did it again but this time the steering wheel wasn't straight,,, really annoying :(
The tyres are now nearly knackered on the outside but have about 5mm tread across the rest.
Waste of £120 >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
Ime...I think fitting new springs can cause the outside wear on the front. Springs take a time to settle to their specific ride hight. How long? who knows, but I guess about a month should see most of the settling done.
Reason it causes outer edge wear is the omega is very sensative to ride hight because it affects the camber setting, increasing camber as the ride hight lowers. Excessive camber causes INSIDE edge wear. But here's the thing, as i understand it, when camber increases this affects the toe setting, causing toe in UNLESS the track rods are shortened to retrieve correct toe setting again.
Think along the lines of, if the top of the wheels lean in, then the steering tie rods have to be shortened as well, because they are rearward of the front axle point, leaning the wheel top in means the wheel also must toe in as well, it has to.
This is why wim deal with the omegas front settings in order of caster(subrame position, this must be correct first as altering it will cock up camber and toe, but not relevant to this issue) then camber(because leaning the wheel in affects track rod length, they need to be shortened) then last of all toe once caster and camber are correct.
Toe in has caused your outside edger wear, resulted from springs settling as they do, which increased camber which in turn caused excessive toe in. So I guess there "may" have been inside edge wear from excess camber, although probably not massive, along with outside edger wear caused by excess toe(front wheels like this / ^ \ when viewed from above arrow showing forward direction)
Hope I've explained that clearly. Understanding it us one thing, conveying it to others is quite another. :-\
How do you adjust the camber on the Omega? (front)
Had a quick look today while I had the front end on the stands (just done a quick oil change), but couldn't workout how you adjust it?