why TF can't I find anyone prepared to sell a simple mechanical tracking gauge (the kind that sits under the vehicle and measures the distance between the wheel rims) except in america?
every bugger wants to sell laser ones for about 500 notes, or optical ones for about 3-400 notes.
I did find the gunsons trackright but that's not really what I'm looking for.
Piece of wood with a coat hanger wire fastened to one end?
Julian.
I used an old (very stiff) telescoping car aerial for years until they put the anti-roll bar on the RRC. At that point I had to make my own device with some kinks in the ends. As Julian suggests, nothing hi-tech is needed with a Land-Rover.
Tape measure? A bit of a faff, but works fine for LR's!
Richard
I totally messed up the tracking on my car after taking the rack and ball joints off and not marking stuff first.
I made one out of a length of straight wood with 2 right angled shelf brackets fixed on at the end, each with a bolt through at the top end (to provide fine adjustment by changing the length of the bolt)
get the car level first, and then the wood sat flat on the floor, then the shelf brackets stuck up at the ends and the bolt was adjusted till it touched the inner rim/edge of my wheel.
I think i went for a tiny bit of toe in on my car so i had it so my bar fitted in at the front and had a bit of slack at the back.
Takes a while but seems to work roughly. later checked with a gunsons trackright and thet thinks i have equal toe in on either side.
Ive not got round to taking it to a proper garage to have it chcked yet but hope to in the next week or two.
I used to use two unused gas welding rods side by side, taped together with masking tape (put on sticky side out) so they'd slip a bit if forced, but stayed in place most of the time. When getting them into place you can bend them a little within their spring ability. Then I got the Dunlop optical gauge I've been using this last 25 years or so.
Karen
A few bricks, a couple of bits of straight metal the length of the vehicle, and a metal ruler is what I used to do the four-wheel tracking on the plastic rocket.
Prop them up level with the wheel centres, measure from centre of wheel to rod and get each axle the same both sides (track width can vary front to rear so don't expect front measure and rear to be the same), check that the two rods are the same distance apart at both ends. Now you've got the vehicle in the middle of two parallel bars, and can just measure the distance between front edge of each wheel and rear edge.
You will of course have to bugger about to get the front wheels dead straight on the steering, but you have to do that with pretty much any system.
I've got a very old optical one which belonged to my grandfather originally. IIRC it measures the toe-in/out in 1/64th inch. I can't see how it can cost so much to make one, but this one on ebay is (nearly) the same design
However i've never used it on my series vehicles, I just use a tape measure.
Alex
On or around Sat, 08 Jul 2006 11:58:13 +0100, beamendsltd enlightened us thusly:
yeah, I tend to do other things as well. I can use a pair of steel rules on the landy - one 1m and one 2ft, and a small clamp to hold 'em together.
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