Series 3 Coiler Steering Weight

[ajh]

I have a customer who just bought a Series 3 hybrid, at first glance it appears to have discovery axles and probably a professionally built chassis, all actually looks really well done.

It has a naturally aspirated Land Rover diesel, I would guess a 19j since there is a mounting location above the injection pump that looks like the AC compressor location on a 200tdi.

The issue is that the steering is both very heavy and excessively vague, my assumption is that either the knuckle geometry on the discovery swivel housing is significantly different or the pitman arm is much shorter than on the series knuckle (I don't have one to compare) so the steering ratio is probablyway off.

So my question is, is there an easy solution? A manual box with more torque or similar? Lengthening the pitman arm is an option but the steering vagueness is likely to become significantly worse, so fitting an adwest 4-bolt power box and one of the spare pumps I have here off a v8. Has anyone done a mounting bracket to fit one? Is mounting it high a problem as long as the reservoir is high enough to avoid air locks.

Any other ideas?

[tuko]

The steering weight on mine is the same as a regular series 3 and there is no vagueness. The steering is standard series 3 down to the pitman arm, from there it's Defender steering rod to the swivel. I'd suggest inspecting the steering components for problems before looking else wheres.

BTW, who's truck is it? Steve's yellow 88 which use to be Tony's ?

Todd.

[ToyRoverlander]

If it indeed is a non-series axle, have a look at what the castor is set at. If it is way too much (should be around 3degrees) it makes the steering really heavy. That would explain why it is so heavy. 2 solutions really, fix the castor angle or fit PAS. A longer pitman arm will make steering even heavier.

[FridgeFreezer]

If the castor angle is wrong (and I've seen some total abortions of conversions) then it needs fixing regardless, PAS would just mask the problem.

Has it got big wheels/tyres on, wheel spacers?

[Snagger]

I agree with all of the above - Series steering will only be slightly heavier with coiler axles due to the swivel housing steering arms being slightly shorter on the later axles, but the difference is not marked. Series steering is much maligned for vagueness, heaviness and slop, but that's just a sign of very poor maintenance; well maintained steering is light, has no play or wander, and while it can't be labelled as precise, it's feel and control are very reasonable and well within the capabilities of most petite women and elderly drivers. If you start putting big tyres of heavily offset wheels on, then you do get much heavier steering and much worse feel and wander, but the same is true of any vehicle. I have to contend a little with that on my 109, while the Lightweight is a breeze to drive and shows how unnecessary PAS is on vehicles with standard axles and wheels.

Castor angle will make a difference, but the symptoms seem to be inconsistent with that - too much castor gives heavy steering but high directional stability, while insufficient castor gives light and twitchy steering with a lot of wander. Heavy and wandering steering point to a wheel/tyre size issue as Fridge alluded to, along with a tracking adjustment problem. Even a slight maladjustment of tracking can cause a lot of wander, and it's not unlikely that the coiler axles have been left with a toe out setting while Series vehicles should be set with toe in (1.2-2.4mm at the wheel rim). The idea behind that is that the small amounts of play and flex in the swivels and track rod gives parallel wheels, the toes pulling together with the driven front axle on a permanent 4wd coiler or dragged toes apart with the free-wheeling Series front axle (normally in 2wd on tarmac). If the vehicle also has permanent 4wd (LT230 or similar), then the tracking should be toe out - it's the transmission that dictates toe in or out, not the axle source.