Thread: Brand new Puma drifting to the left

Mine pulled left from factory too. Had a front wheel alignment done while up in Gloucester - they said it was out by 9.5mm - which apparently is a lot ! As you report, it now pulls straight on a level road, but they warned me that any road camber will make it pull (left or right - and I have seen it go right too).

In my case it's made worse by 285/75 tyres with MT patterns, which they said would exacerbate the issue. Being a twin solid axle vehicle, I would have thought that this just goes with the territory - and conversely when offroad, we enjoy those benefits.

I am actually very happy with the result on mine - should help reduce tyre wear.

Originally Posted by Naks

Further measurements by the specialist revealed that the rear axle was at fault, with a 0.3deg thrust angle. Basically the rear axle was pointing right, thus making the front pivot to the left. This was fixed by repositioning the rear axle to make it parallel to the front axle.

Got the landy back this afternoon. On the drive back home I noticed the following: on a good flat road the landy goes straight, but as soon as the road is slightly cambered or uneven, it swings to the left quite badly.

I'm at my wits end here, not sure what the next step is... any advice?

Thats what its supposed to do.If everything is right on a normal flat straight road it should drive straight,but on cambered roads it should pull left as the road is made that way to clear water.Not all roads are made the same and I drive an both tar and dirt roads and some make both my vehicles pull left and some don't.If I'm on a heavily cambered road I drive on the crown as much as possible or put up with it. Pat

Hi All

Without confusing eveyone with figures, the pulling left or right can be explained this way.
Look at the steering of a log skider, they have two solid beam axles without any swivel pin housings in either of them.
These machines are designed to bend in the middle, they have what is called, articulated steering.
When turning to the right, on the outside of the turning circle, the left hand wheels must move further apart. and the inside of the turning circle the right hand wheels move closer together.

So to make a Coil sprung Land Rover track more to the right the axles could be set so they also are further apart on the left hand side, by using spacer washers between the front of the front chassis mount and the radius arm, or the back of the rear chassis mount and the rear bottom link assembly or do both arms and their respective chassis mounts.

Are you with me so far ?

Because there is a lot more to this and it involves, looking at the angle of the radius arms and measuring the loaded spring heights.

As JC has said, to alter the caster on one side only, that requires slotting the bolt holes on the flange where the swivel pin housing meets the axle tube, if those flanges were welded in the first place by the factory, with the bolt holes in their correct postions, I would not touch them at this stage. The Warranty Police would be in their glee.

Cheers Arthur

Originally Posted by wrinklearthur

So to make a Coil sprung Land Rover track more to the right the axles could be set so they also are further apart on the left hand side, by using spacer washers between the front of the front chassis mount and the radius arm, or the back of the rear chassis mount and the rear bottom link assembly or do both arms and their respective chassis mounts.

So ur saying if I want to cure this residual drag, I can simply put a spacer washer on the front left radius arm to push the front left wheel out a bit?

5mm spacer went onto the front left radius arm this morning. Very slight improvement. Suspension technician reckons that's as good as it's going to
get without re-positioning the swivel.

Probably not worth it to correct 34' of caster difference, and also will void warranty.

To update you guys:

I noticed the other day that I can turn the steering wheel to the left 1+3/4 turns, but only 1+1/2 turns to the right. So I think the vehicle's steering is not centred but always turning left slightly.

My indie mech says this is caused by the steering rod being too long, and removing about 5mm on each side should do the trick. Will ask LR to check when I take it in tomorrow.

But at the moment the slow coolant leak is more troubling since I have a 5000km trip to Namibia coming up in 2 weeks' time!

Originally Posted by Naks

To update you guys:

I noticed the other day that I can turn the steering wheel to the left 1+3/4 turns, but only 1+1/2 turns to the right. So I think the vehicle's steering is not centred but always turning left slightly.

My indie mech says this is caused by the steering rod being too long, and removing about 5mm on each side should do the trick. Will ask LR to check when I take it in tomorrow.

But at the moment the slow coolant leak is more troubling since I have a 5000km trip to Namibia coming up in 2 weeks' time!

Thinking about the steering geometry, the key to centring the steering (equal turns left/right) is twofold.

One is that the length of the drag link (pitman arm on steering box to LH steering arm) needs to be the same as the distance between the plane of the pitman shaft and the steering arm - this is affected by the length of the panhard rod, and its anchorages. My experience with worn panhard rod bushes shows that it needs very little change in this length for it to show up as a marked angle at the steering wheel.

But you cannot just assume that unequal L/R turns means the drag link length is wrong, because the second factor is how far the wheel has turned. This is limited by the steering stop on the opposite side to the direction the wheels are turned. These are adjustable, and the amount of turn, because the control is on the opposite side, is also affected by the length of the track rod, in other words, the toe in/out. Which is also adjustable. There is no guarantee that these adjustments are correct, and the same in both directions, so the number of turns each way is not a good measure of steering centring. In practice, it is likely that the length of the drag link has been adjusted to get the fine adjustment (less than one tooth on the steering wheel spline) to centre the steering wheel.

Hope this makes sense.

John

Vehicle has been in the shop for 4 weeks now. Sent to 2 different panelbeaters for measurements - no issues with the chassis.

So far wheels have been swopped, tyres have been swopped. Swivel preload has been checked. They also replaced the front axle with one from a brand new Puma, still same behaviour. They are now going to swop the steering box.

At this rate I will have a brand new vehicle bit by bit...