Alignment couldn't be completed. Help!

[dmwhiteoak]

Fiat88 I used your spec sheet saturday to get mine alighned. the shop had no specs on a fiat and could not find one. Thanks. they ere not able to alighn because I need more parts replaced that I missed but at least the have the info to do it.
dennis

[Fiat88]

Glad my post had info to help you out!

I got the new idler in and everything back together. Hoping to bring it for the alignment in a few weeks. Been busy lately with school and work. Have to get my inspection at the same time.

[124JOE]

congrats to ya!
you can do a quick alinment,go look at your daily driver and see how the tires track F/B.then go to your fiat and
set the Swheel to center pick the straightest wheel and look down the tire at the back tire
if you can see the rear tire and both sides of the front(front side edge tward you/rear side edge twards the door)
its set.if not turn the tierod link center bar.KEEP CHECKING THE Swheel for straight ahead
then move on to the other side
same as before adjusting the wheel to look right

but keep the Swheel straight
dont do this if you havent rolled the car back and forth about 10 feet
then you can drive it to the shop for a full one.joe

[katsi]

I don't know if this will help or not but here goes . I am in the process of refreshing my front end. I put in new upper and lower control arms in the front and while I was under there I noticed that the tie rod ends were really bad. So, I decided to go ahead and put new ones on. I purchased the set and then found out that some of the tie rod ends in the set may be too long for the 79. Simply put, they will not thread into the tube far enough and thus, no way are you going to get it alligned. I only had this problem on one side and I know the tubes are original.

Anyway, hope you get it figured out . Heck , I hope I get mine figured out as I am not done with the front end yet. In fact, the replacement tie rod end just came today .

[Fiat88]

Interesting katsi that this happens with '79s.

So, is it just the tie rod ends which are too long with these complete sets and not the sleeves? Could I just buy new tie rods ends and reuse the hardware from the completes sets I bought?

[124JOE]

when i set mine the tierods were 12 inches center of bolt to bolt

[katsi]

HMM - I don't see any reason why you couldn't put together some sort of combination.

Again, I don't know for certain what is going on with your car. But, I just tried another 3 different tie rod ends and none of them would work. One was actually the right size but, it was the wrong thread. If you look at different tie rod ends and put them side to side, some are longer than others. And for some reason, the threads in the tube stop and the longer ones won't thread in far enough. It's not much but enough to make it not work on mine. A little adjustment at that point has a profound impact on the finished product you know?

Anyway, it was just a thought. Hope you get it figured out. Hope I do too.

[katsi]

124Joe has a pretty good starting point of 12 inches - I guess. Sounds about right anyway I did not measure so maybe we could get some guys to go out and get an average measurments from set ups that work. That would be a good place to start. It's not like making it larger is the problem. It's getting it to scruch down that is the problem. Those tie rod ends have lots of wiggle OUT room. It's the wiggle IN that seems to be causing me so much trouble. Hope that makes sence.

[124ADDHE]

When I got my tie-rod ends from auto-ricambi, one of the 2 for each side was too long, cant remember how much I took off but it was not a problem: grind/saw amount off, use a small file or box-cutter or WHY to fix the burrs in the threads up, done deal

[124JOE]

when i got a set of new tierod ends they were numbered
inner and outer,the threads were not the same so they cant be mixed up
but after installing they can be put on backwards."like mine was"so i fixed that

[katsi]

When I got my tie-rod ends from auto-ricambi, one of the 2 for each side was too long, cant remember how much I took off but it was not a problem: grind/saw amount off, use a small file or box-cutter or WHY to fix the burrs in the threads up, done deal

Yeah, Csaba from Auto-Ricambi gave me a buzz today as he was trying to put some parts together for me that would work. I told him I was just going to cut the one's from the kit and bevel off the edges. He said that would definatly do the trick. That guy is really great. Always willing to give some advice to us boneheads that always seem to mess things up when we're trying to fix things. But hay, that's what owing a Fiat Spider is all about - right .

By the way 124ADDHE -thanks. I never thought of doing that untill I saw your post. Going to bring them in tomorrow to the guys in the machine shop here at work and let them have at both sets. Thinking about lopping off about 1/2 inch from both.

learning - always learning

[Fiat88]

I removed the steering box once again(this is a different box) to replace the 2 seals. Just to see whats going on with the tie rods, I removed the drivers side and measured it, it was about 12". Then I checked to see if the tie rods can thread more in, once end could go all the way the other side stopped with about an 1" of thread sticking out. Will have to remove the passanger side and check it out. Any thoughts?

[124JOE]

yes it should be centered
and the other side should as well
and when its all short then spin both ends untill 12 inches with equal threads on both sides
then repeat it on the pass side

[Fiat88]

Tomorrow goona replace the seals on the box as I got my local mechanic to take off the dreaded pitman arm. I gave him ten bucks and five as a tip to his guy who took it off. Well worth the money! He used his pitman arm remover, impact wrench, and hammer. Took him about 5 minutes.

I showed him the tie rod end for his advice and he said the end which isn't threading in isn't threaded deep enough. After I get everything back together he's gonna do the work to fix the lentgh issue. He also quoted me $75 for the rear automatic trans seal but said he will do it for $50. Gonna get it done when I bring it for the alignment fix after the holidays. Will update you guys.

[katsi]

Well, I took my car in yesterday for the alignment after replacing the upper and lower control arms and tie rod ends. They had her in and out in just over an hour. Guy said it was no problem at all. It didn't roll so well when I brought her in and I thought that maybe one of my brakes were sticking but nope, it was just un aligned friction from the tiers. She rolls with just a slight nudge now like she used to. The front front end is real tight but the steering has developed a nice play that I never noticed before. Hope I can just adjust most of this out via the steering box. But, she does not dart to one side or the other during braking anymore not to mention bumps or uneven pavement - wow it was like she was possessed before . Even with the play, she brakes streight without touching the wheel at all.

So, I guess cutting the tie rod ends worked out pretty well. I ended up slicing off about 3/8 " and rounding off the threads to the new tie rod ends. Seemed to do the trick.