[Shotimes] Re: Inner Tie Rods - Redux

[Alan Fanning]

With the wheel removed from the front driver's side, I've poked and prodded
a bit more to try to isolate where the wobble about the horizontal axis of
the associated steering knuckle is occuring. Having the wheel/tire combo
installed sort of ruins the view of things, so I installed short spacers
over the wheel studs and tightened things up with several lug nuts. This
allows me to shake the brake rotor without incurring relative motion between
the rotor and hub. To monitor displacement of the rotor, I installed a dial
indicator with a mag base on the strut body, pointed at 12 o'clock on the
rotor. 

What I find is that the rotor and hub assembly seem to be moving relative to
the knuckle. If I put my finger between the LCA and the back side of the
rotor, I can actually feel a slight differential motion between the two. At
the ~6" radius of the rotor, I get a total deflection of about .008 inch, or
call it ~.020 total at the lip of the rim (if it were mounted).


So, I guess this means the wheel bearing is the culprit, not the LCA (too
bas, as I have a spare LCA). But there is one thing still bothering me: why
does the motion only occur about the horizontal axis? Maybe the caliper and
pads are preventing motion in the other direction under the limited force
I'm applying? Any other ideas?

    Alan

PS  Thanks to Russ M for his assistance in puzzling this out.


Most telling seems to be that, when attempting to rotate the grasping at the
12 o'clock and 6 o'clock positions,  I can ceel relative motion between the
plus measured the displacement at the OD of my BAER rotor (with the rotorl
offsome input from Russ, I've isolated the wobble in my left front wheel to
being as follows:

o   not the ball joint (prying between LCA and strut clamp boss results in
no apparent relative motion)

o   not the LCA-to-frame bushing (that would take a lot more force to
effect, I think; plus if I put my finger between the, and I can actually
feel  effect the