Okay I just put on a new passenger side outer tie rod on my DSM beater car. The alignment was off to begin with so counting the threads only got me in the ballpark. Now, when I hold the steering wheel to where it should be I drift to the left. So does that mean my pass. tire is pointing to the left and I should bring the tie rod in to straighten the wheel? I am asking b/c I counted 8 threads so i put it to 6 and it made the problem worse, but shouldn't 6 be closer to achieving straightness?

 

you want to bring the passenger side tie rod IN.

its tricky, just gotta think about it. hold your hands out straight and play with them mentally.

also, start to reduce the amount of turns you are adjusting now. ive found the steering wheel to be sensitive to less than a QUARTER turn. if youre adjusting 2 whole turns at a time, you could easily overshoot your mark.

 

Wow, that sensitive huh? I wonder why they give you like 15 or so threads to play with then. How much more accurate is this then an alignment? This is on my beater car and I just don't want to be buying new tires all the time!

 

It's accurate enough to get you to the alignment shop to get an accurate alignment done.

Or you can measure it yourself with a friend and a tape measure.

 

well, you can get it so that its going straight. but you wont know how much youre either toed in or out unless you get some measurement tools or get a 4 wheel alignment.

and even with some measuring tools of your own, you wont really know if youre rear tires are matched up with your front. thats why you need to get a 4 wheel alignment.

in your case, if you JUST want to get it back to where it was before you messed with the tie rod, ASSUMING you ONLY touched that one side, then you can just adjust the passenger side which you changed to make it drive straight again (or wherever the steering wheel was positioned before). but thats assuming your alignment before was good, and you didnt mess anything else up.

 

yea my alignment was bad before I did this, and only replaced cause I needed to for the alignment. So I guess I will just have to suck it up and PAY for an alignment huh?

I think we should all pay 1 dollar for an alignment machine and use it as many times as we want for free. We could split it up by region so each regoin would have one so it is not that far away from everyone! Alright enough of that...

Thanks for the help guys

travis