Steering - Testing

This page will not get into definitions of "toe" or "caster" or "camber" or "Ackerman". However, you should know what these terms mean or much of this page will be useless to you. Click here for a nice, easy page that explains these terms.

OK, assuming you now know what all the terms mean, let's get started. I've built my own set-up board so I can accurately measure toe, camber and Ackerman. Caster is not adjustable on the MGT, so I have not attempted to measure it. Caster is set from the factory at a few degrees positive.

Unless otherwise noted, I am using zero degrees toe and zero degrees camber for all tests. Also, I will typically give maximum wheel rotation measurements as xx°/yy°. What this means is the wheel rotates xx° in one direction and yy° in the other direction. The difference in wheel rotation is due to the Ackerman effect. So, if I said a particular test showed the left wheel rotating 30°/22°, that would mean that in a left turn the wheel rotation is 30° and in a right turn the wheel rotation is 22°. The inside tire will always turn more, that is the Ackerman effect. Also, in this example we would have a total rotational ability of 52° (30 + 22).

Here's a pic of my set-up board in action:

I mounted and squared everything, then started turning the wheels right and left, while taking degree readings from the protractors. This was a very interesting experiment. Here's a pic of a typical reading:

I always use the outside edge of the Plexiglas to get the reading. I started this one at zero. This is the right side wheel, turned to the right. You can see (it's a little hard to tell in the pic) that it has rotated about 30°. This gives you an idea of how I was getting the readings.

See my initial results and how they were used to diagnose & correct a common MGT steering problem here. See the relative steering ranges of different wheel tire combinations here.

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