Hello everyone

Question regarding the steering wheel alignment on a 91 XJS. If a take a left turn and straighten out the car the wheel will be turned to the left. Then I take a right turn and straighten the car out, it will be turned too far right. I haven't come across this in my research yet.

Let me know what you think. Thanks

 

How is the tyre wear? Is it even on the fronts or biased towards the inner or outer edges?
It could be that you have a huge amount of play in the rack bushes.
You might even be getting rear wheel steer from badly worn radius arm bushes.

 

I should have added the car has that loose steering feel, that wandering off the road feel. Try to correct it but there is a lot of play. So I am leaning towards the steering rack bushings.

Would the kit from Jaguar Specialties be what everyone would recommend? Its on ebay for 39.99 right now.

Thanks for the help.

 

Alex,

I have poly bushes fitted for the past 13 years. Would recommend them. An alternative is to put poly on the lower bushes and an original genuine Jaguar Sport bush on the top.

Good luck

PAul

 

I think you should take the car to a good alignment shop familiar with Jags as there are a number of things that could be causing your problem. I had a similar problem and replaced the rack bushings which didn't help. I took it to a good shop and found the problem to be worn radius arm bushes.I should have gone there first!

 

Thanks! Mind telling me what shop you went to, I live in the Winston-Salem area.

Thanks again

 

I would 99% say it was your steering rack bushes. I have had other cars do this exact same thing in the past, most notable of which was a Toyota Supra that was assembled so that every time the oil filter was changed, oil would saturate the steering rack bush that did all the side to side locating of the rack.
Fortunately the Jaguar design limits side to side movement somewhat.

 

Wayne's Alignment - 919-742-5771

They've done quite a few XJS's and really know what they're doing.

 

Alex
I agree with the rack bush diagnosis. FYI, these hold the rack to the subframe, and when they start to fail, which the standard jaguar ones do after 10 years or so, when the steering wheel is moved, the first thing that happens is that the rack body moves relative to the subframe, and only when this slop has been taken up does the steering have any effect on the front wheels. Lots of useful info on this recent thread: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-crazy-152886/

An alignment will change nothing, best to replace the bushings and then have the toe aligned (0.25 to 0.5 degrees toe in). You can use poly, or OEM or even better but pricey, JaguarSport. Either way, replacing the heatshields is important, particularly so if you use poly or standard OEM.
Greg

 

I wasn't suggesting that an alignment would fix the problem. When I first went to Wayne's he did a quick road test then put the car on the rack. He checked everything out and showed me that my radius arm bushings were trash and explained to me how that effects the steering. He told me what needed to be done and said come back after I replaced them. No charge!

My point was it's better to get a good diagnosis of the problem from someone who knows what he's doing before just throwing parts at it.

 

I completely agree. Excellent points. Maybe your alignment guy can recommend a place to do the work for Alex?
Greg

 

They are both in NC .... hopefully in the same part of NC