swapping steering arms left to right, on ke70 with ra65 struts

[love ke70]

hey guys, just a bit of an odd question for everyone i guess. but looking at it, i think it will solve an issue i have, but not sure of the repercussions.

ok, the basics, this is the TE72 i imported from america, the 2 door sedan
it will get the HKS 1g in future, at the moment i want to get it rego'd standard.
its been complied, took it for safety inspection the other day, and he picked me for, among other things, a siezed shock, but said, if i wanted to put in my go fast suspension thats all good.
even though its adjustable coil overs he did not have an issue, so long as height was right.

the setup i had in the last car, was ra65 struts and brakes, with adjustable coilovers and koni yellows, with old school adjustable strut tops.
with this setup, and standard LCAs, the best we could get out of it was 1 degree positive camber.

so went to stick the suspension in the 2 door today, and as i was stripping it out of the old shell, i looked at the steering arms (ra65 ps arms), and compared them to the corolla arms.

and, bare with me here...
if you picture the steering arm, and the two bolts that come up into the strut, on the corolla one, if you draw a line across the centre of these, it crosses the centre of the ball joint hole aswell,
however on the ra65 one, when you draw the same line across the centre of the holes, it goes behind the balljoint hole.

so if you can imagine, what that does is pull the bottom of the strut further in, adding to the shite camber condition.

now looking at these, my old man said, theyre on the wrong sides.
but theyre not, the stamps say all is as it should be.

but, can i swap them?

it will bring the bottom of the strut outside the balljoint, instead of inside it, so will give a nicer camber result.

the only thing that im wondering about is the angle on the hole for the tierod, it would be angled the opposite way, but i dont know if this will be an issue, balljoints are made to move all sorts of directions, so who can enlighten me as to why i cant do this?

obviously steering stop bolt can just be run in from the other side.

thoughts and opinions? if you have made it this far i thank you already! haha


cheers, andy

[TIMTAMS]

Need pics to make a good judgment call but am also curious to know what it will effect.

[love ke70]

i knew someone would say that.

off to the shed i go

[love ke70]

more can be found at: http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...eering%20arms/

[LeeRoy]

You'd be ok to swap them provided the steering tie rod end ball joint does not max out at any point. You could always try and find some longer control arms?

It's an easy enough job to put them in so maybe test fit them and see how you go?

[ToyTA22]

There is a thread on here which shows different LCA specs, at the moment can't remember name of thread. I think it was Toyota interchangable oddities, or similar. May help you.

[beerhead]

You're modifying the scrub radius to be further out on the tyre with that inverted steering arm idea, you're changing the pivot point of the arc that your steering arm travels in. But the RA60 struts have a scrub radius that's too far on the inner edge... so is this a a good thing?

[Redmohawk]

Wouldn't the scrub radius be affected by the offest of the Hub to mounting bolt location and wheel offset ? Measuring hub offsets for both sets and wheel offsets etc along with steering arm offsets and posting up in a separate thread might be a great option for info. Might net some insite into good options.

[Redmohawk]

Looking at the NCRCA thread would seem to indicate that asside of your steering ball joint possable issue the rest of the conversion will be a positive.
Looking at these as a referance .

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w...8062010321.jpg

[love ke70]

yeah, i can change LCA's, but this is quite an easy option if its doable
so i just had a bit of a read up on scrub radius etc, so i know what your talking about beerhead and redmohawk

so what your saying is if this works, it brings the scrub radius back towards 0, from a more negative position. yes? just trying to picture this in my head...
and a longer LCA, will make the scrub radius more negative.
because it moves the lower balljoint, whereas, by swapping steering arms left to right, it only moves the strut base, and the lower ball joint stays in the same place, so the negative scrub radius is moved more towards 0
is that right?

the next thing i was wondering, is, is there a car with the same setup steering arm, but with the holes offset in the other direction? anyone wanna take a punt on this?

redmohawk, any chance of a diagram or something, showing how these offsets are measured, you have lost me slightly

[Redmohawk]

the lower control arm shouldn't change the scrub radius, its a function of the relationship between the piviot point of the steering and where it is in relation to the width of the tyre footprint.

[love ke70]

i might even have a set of the NCRCAs, i havnt seen them in donkeys years, but i thought i bought some now you mention them...
interesting.

from what i was reading, that pivot point of the steering is from the centre of the top bearing of the strut, and passes through the centre line of the lower balljoint, so if using a longer LCA, this moves that balljoint out, which increases the angle on the steering pivot?

[Redmohawk]

To mesure everything, look at the steering arms in relation to the ball joint hole. Ie in line, further out, further in.

The strut/hub the face of the hub (where wheel bolts to hub) to the centre point of the mounting holes that bolt to steering arm. (So you know how far the hub face is from the mounting holes)

Then the offset of the wheel your using. Also the recomended wheel for the car origianlly to know if your Over or under standard for a comparason (bentchmark to work from)

That way you can work it all out on paper first (and i have know idea atm but a vested interest as I'm doing a engine swap 1GGZE into KE70 panel van very soon).

Ie say a KE70 has a 13 inch wheel with 0 offset (think this is correct from factory as there 0 to +10 i think) and assume the mounting holes for strut are in line with ball joint hole then as long as the piviot point at top of strut is vertical from ball joint piviot point is right in centre of tyre. This is not the case I assume as top piviot would be inboard I assume changing arangmet slightly. Scrub radius would be zero I assume in this hypothetical instance I assume. Changing mounting hole location will change scrub radius but will also change length of steering arm and so bump steer as well.

Hence picture of adaptor I posted about is often used/called a bumb steer adjuster for lowered cars etc.

Please someone with a bigger grip on suspention feel free to cut this waffle to bits .

[love ke70]

meaurments will be forthcoming when i get to them.

got the replacement steering components in, and put the steering arm on, was trying to get the strut in and the car down on the ground to see what it does when i turn, with everything hanging, at full lock all looks ok, but the drama is te72 strut top bolt pattern is differnt to ke70,so my adjustable tops wont fit now

grr.

now to decide whether to swap to standard tops, order new adjustables and delay the install and hope i end up using them with the final suspension setup. or just replace the siezed shock with a good one i have here in the standard strut, got the fucking thing rego'd, then come back to this, or more than likely, do the rack and pinion powersteering conversion and all the suspension with something completely different.

this does have me intrigued now though...

[LeeRoy]

Why don't the adjustable tops fit the TE72 struts? Is it the shock diameter? Surely you could go visit a machine shop and get a sleeve or something similar made up.