Caster and steering feel E21

[Qfbohc83]

Greetings all,

I have a question about steering feel on a 1978 E21. No power steering. All of the suspension bushings have been replaced with poly. The lower steering shaft flex disk has been replaced. No power steering. Tires and wheels are good.

The alignment was done at a competent shop, everything is within specs. The caster is around 7 degrees negative.

Most of the cars we drive nowadays have power steering and positive caster.

Maybe I'm not use to anything without power steering, it has been a while, but the steering feels pretty touchy. The steering effort is light, and it doesn't wander. It just feels pretty sensitive.

If I had the caster reduced would it feel a bit more modern? I understand that the steering effort would increase by doing this. As would the self centering.

Thanks for any information you can share.

Regards
Dave

[Qfbohc83]

I forgot to mention that it has coilovers with the adjustable tops. So everything is adjustable.

[RBNetEngr]

Do you have the alignment sheet? And do you trust the shop that did the alignment?

When you say the steering is “touchy”, can you be more specific? Is your judgement based on comparison with another car and if so, which car?

Did this “touchy” steering start after you had suspension work and/or alignment done?

More Caster tends to make the steering heavier, because the extra caster increases the wheels seeking to straighten out.

Toe set incorrectly, or even zero toe or some toe out (toe is generally set slightly negative, so the wheels point inward). If the toe is at zero, suspension flex under load can cause the front wheels to toe out dynamically. And static toe out will make the steering darty.


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[Qfbohc83]

Thanks RBNetEngr,

I do have the alignment specs, they are very close to the factory specs with no major discrepancies including side to side.

I found a good shop and I do trust them. It took a couple of tries as no one in my very rural area would work on it. I had to travel to the "big" city over the mountains.

I saw it's touchy compared to my modern cars, all with power steering. With those you can relax a bit, with the 320 I feel like if I take my hands off the wheel I'll spin out. It's probably not that bad, but I'm just not used to it. It's been a long time since I've driven a car without power steering. It does track straight, no vibration up to 65 mph, the fastest I've had it yet. It just feels like if I sneeze I'll spin out. Very light steering feel.

The suspension was totally screwed up by the previous owner. He put coilovers on it then slammed it as low as it would go. He then proceeded to run it into a curb. The passenger side front engine support was bent. I also had to replace the rear subframe as that was bent too.

So the before driving dynamics are useless as a comparison. I just got it on the road in the past week after sorting out a multitude of electrical problems under the dash. 45 years of adding crap and never cleaning out the wires left from the crap you pulled out makes for more than a few phantom loads. Also lightened the car by 10-15 pounds of wire. It's quite the pile.

I'm starting to think there might be other problems resulting from the curb incident. Sedate cornering is ok, but if I push it a bit in a right hander at some point it suddenly pulls hard to the right. It doesn't do this in left handers.

The steering is very light, so moving the caster towards zero wouldn't be a problem. It would increase tracking in a straight line is my understanding.

[Qfbohc83]

It was the tires! I swapped the fronts to the rear and all the weird handling went away. Time to get some new ones on there PDQ.