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Guest Beauxgus

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Guest Beauxgus

My restomod '57 T-Bird rocks from side to side when I get up to speed 50-60 MPH. Small steering corrections cause it to overcompensate then you respond the other way and it starts to rock.

Tried Rack and Pinion steering but problem persists. It has radial wide white walls. It has a 302 engine and transmission from a Mustang. (before I bought it.)

We saw where the springs could loosen and cause trouble. Re-Torqued and it's still rocking. Any ideas?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

CMW

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Guest Jeff k

X2 on the toe in...

Toe in will cause this issue, one side gets traction and passes it off to the other.. On my 64 Bonneville, I run a little toe out because I like 2 degrees of negative caster...

You can fix it yourself, just loosen the toe rod ends and slightly tweek the couplings toward toe out and try it, keep testing it until you are happy with it.. Toe is best adjusted by feel.... You want the steering to feel tight on the straightaway, you should be able to rest your one hand on top of the wheel while going down the road at speed with a feeling of comfort and predictability and turn corners with the least amount of turning...

Edited by Jeff k (see edit history)
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Guest Beauxgus

Thanks to all for the ideas. We've tried as much as 6-7 negative caster. Still swaying. Wondering if the difference between the weight of the engines (Old Y Block vs 302 Mustang) is the culprit. Thinking maybe the front springs are built to support a heavier engine so the factory front end alignment is no longer what I need.

At first suspected the power steering pump was overpowering and over compensating. So we disconnected it and drove it. Still swaying.

I've had it laser aligned and adjusted to factory specs.

Appreciate you guys taking a look and offering your comments.

CMW

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Guest Jeff k

I'm guessing the tech looked at the sway bar and it's links... Poly links would be best...

Try having the spindles tilted back toward positive caster with a little more on the passenger side, as much as you can dial in with no more then one degree of negative camber, then have the tech set it to 1/32 1/32 toe out.....

Ideally you want the tops of both tires tilting in the same direction as the car is turning, you get this with positive caster, negative camber...

Negative caster makes the steering too sensitive with no bounce back after a turn..

You'd be surprised at how well you can get these old cars to handle with a decent set of radial tires and modern alignment specs....

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  • 1 year later...
Guest Silverbird58
On 3/29/2015 at 2:04 PM, TexasJohn55 said:

Front end alignment, too much toe in.

He is right  the toe  is chewing the out side of the tires off . 

        Run as much caster as you can get ,  ( neg on 50's fords )  is best ,even with radials .  so far  the one skyliner that came to my rack i put  1-3/4 neg on the right and 1-5/8 ish neg on the right

             and drove it  . wheel Glided to center easy , and rolled strait down my Test street . 

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