Notorious Notorious first breakage

[sevin7]

My Notorious had its first breakage yesterday while driving. I don't blame the car as I was doing jumping and had quite a few bad landings. A screw that attaches the the front steering block to the upper suspension arm fell out. I put the screw back in and replaced the missing suspension arm spacer (it fell off somewhere). Something is still not right because I can't get both of my wheels to point straight forward at the same time. I have no experience using this type of pivot ball steering block on the front (I come from a Slash 4x4 which uses a c-block on the front). I would expect that this problem would be caused by one of the steering links being shorter than the other (which can happen in a crash), but they are both the same length. Anyone got any tips on how to fix my alignment before I tear the whole thing apart?

 

[bicketybam]

That is the toe. Adjust the left side (looking down from the top in your picture) by lengthening the turnbuckle that attaches to the red metal tab on the steering hub. A lot of people actually run with a little toe out so you could actually adjust the other side to have it point a tad out as well.

The pivot balls adust camber. There are a bunch on discussions on here regarding that as well.

 

[slick2500]

That is the toe. Adjust the left side (looking down from the top in your picture) by lengthening the turnbuckle that attaches to the red metal tab on the steering hub. A lot of people actually run with a little toe out so you could actually adjust the other side to have it point a tad out as well.

The pivot balls adust camber. There are a bunch on discussions on here regarding that as well.

You actually want some toe out in the front and toe in in the rear, your car should look like this for ideal handling.

 

[olds97_lss]

A little toe out in the front is ok. Having the front tires straight makes it wander, having toe-in makes it very darty and hard to control at speed.

You might want to check your front upper/rear hinge pin holder. I broke mine and it goofed up my toe, but wasn't overly noticeable that it was broken until I started pushing/pulling the arms. The front side of the upper hinge pins goes through the tower, so it's not likely to totally rip off, but the rear of the upper hinge pin threads into a plastic piece. I replaced that piece with VRC.

 

[Jerry-rigged]

X3 on everything is OK with the toe out - that is supposed to be like that.

Go ahead and order a new set of upper arms. Once the threads have pulled, it WILL happen again, easier the second time.

 

[Thrillhouse700]

What do the wheel look like when the servo horn is straight? Look at your original picture, the horn is angled from its straight left to right position. If you straighten it does it get worse or look even?

 

[Paultro84]

The red aluminum piece that the tie rods screw to could be bent also. Mine bent all the time. This would make the tie rods seem shorter.

 

[sevin7]

The toe out on the front wheels looked excessive the first time I saw the car out of the box but I ran it anyways and it drove fine. After this breakage the toe out seemed even more excessive but after looking at it from different angles I'm pretty sure it did not change from the out of the box configuration (I'm almost certain that the toe links did not get pushed in as the result of a crash, they are identical in length). I think I'm so used to looking at cars that don't have toe out on the front that every time I pay attention to the outcast toe out it looks wrong to me. However, its likely not wrong because the thing drives great, the steering is perfect, and its extremely steady at high speeds.

I've now drove the car hard a few times since screwing the front steering block back in (I also put some super glue in there, it works like loctite on metal to plastic). What I find strange is that the screw came out and it doesn't look like it stripped the plastic hole in the arm at all.

 

[runout789]

The red aluminum piece that the tie rods screw to could be bent also. Mine bent all the time. This would make the tie rods seem shorter.

This is what I just had on my truggy typhon..VERY SLIGHT bend in the piece between two tie rods, caused a major difference in wheels. Pop out hit with hammer and put back in. All good now