Capri Technical Forum:

Can anyone help. My 1.6 capri pulls to the left all the time and its worse under braking.
I've changed Steering rack, Track control arms, Track rod ends and wheel bearings and it drives like a different car but it still pulls it has relatively new calipers and the brakes aren't binding. The steering wheel also wobbles sometimes when it feels like it but i've had the wheels balanced twice. It doesn't look like it been in a smash. Any ideas
Cheers in advance, Danny.

i had a similar thing
and changed all the above,
turned out to be my cross member in the end,

in what respect....bent?

no mine was drilled wrong one end where the track arm bolts into,

My god that sounds like a monster job. Am i right in thinking the whole world is connected to the crossmember. How did you find out? Do you just measure the holes from the ends?

Hi, one thing you have not mentioned is the shock absorber or the coil spring. Are these ok? Is the ride height the same both sides of the car, and is the damping the same.
Just another area to look at if you allready have not.

The back springs hang lower than a slappers knickers but the front seem equal with no excessive bounce. The springs are seated correctly as far as i can see.

try jacking it up an getting the front wheels of the ground.turn the wheels one side to the other to see if everything feels even lock to lock.
might be a strut top mount binding.
and try using handbrake to see if its got anything to do with rear brakes.

Cheers guys for all the advice! Front seems unrestricted. Pulled handbrake and it did pull left once and it always locks passenger side wheel. Just a thought but the rear antiroll bar looks bent. It is not symmetrical on both sides where it fastenes to body. Also it looks as if there is an adjustable eye. Is this used to line up the axle?

Has the tracking been set? are the rear brakes adjusted correctly? if not all the braking will be on the front and road camber will pull the car to the curb?

Its had new cylinders on back less than 6 months ago and mechanic say track within 1 degree. Think I'm gonna have to get a 4 wheel track and check to see if owts bent
The tops of the springs didn't move with steering. They are fixed i.e winding up when turning left and right. I've heard two different oppinions on whether this is normal including mechanic. It seems wrong to me but then i'm not up to speed on suspension. Anyone know?

U can try all u want m8.... but the real problem will end up being your right caliper not working correctly. Could be contaminated pads, brake hose expanding, piston sticking, air in the system, but unless u have a broken spring or shock on left, its ur brakes to blame.

John

You write with such conviction! Hope its that simple!

Two other areas to check would be the front anti roll bar bushes as under breaking the inertia makes the roll bar move if the near-side bush is u/s that will cause the n/s wheel to move further back that the o/s this would also cause the steering wheel to wobble
The second thing to check is that both front tyres are the same make/size etc as different makes have slight difference in rolling radius
hope u get it sorted as I know it!s a s*** to cure.
Every capri I have ever owned suffered from some sort of steering wobble @ one time or another.

Cheers for the advice. I'm ordering polyflex bushes as I type.