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auto veers left & right

To: mgs@autox.team.net
Subject: auto veers left & right
From: gerry@hostel.lincroftnj.attgis.com
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 95 14:27 EST
Subject: auto verrs left & right
     > When traveling at about 40 or more and you let off the accelerator, 
     > the car seems to veer to the left. Upon acceleration it will veer to 
     > the right. It feels as though the rear of the car is shifting one way, 
     > then the other. I also notice that the gear shift moves from left to 
     > right when you let off or give it more gas. this seems to indicate 
     > that the transmission is shifting in relation to the body of the car. 
     > I have mentioned this to a few people and it has been suggested that a 
     > motor mount may be loose. 
    
I had a similar problem on my Midget a few years ago. On hard acceleration, 
the car veered to the left and on deceleration the car veered to the right.

Took the car to be aligned - no improvement
Rotated all the tyres - no improvement
Checked all the motor/gearbox/suspension mounts - no improvement.

So I decided to swap the rear springs for a couple of spares that I had 
lying around.  On removing one of the rear leaf-springs, I noticed that one 
of the leaves had broken (I think it was the main leaf). The break occured 
right underneath the axle mounting point, so it was hidden by the mounting 
bracket. When I undid the 2 "U" clamps, the spring fell apart in my hands.

Installing "new" springs solved the problem.

gerry


BTW - don't rule out the tyres. On my pro-rally car, I had similar problems,
and I assumed that the rear beam axle had been bent. Took the car to be
aligned and everything was within spec. But it still exibited the same 
problem with veering to the left/right. The alignment shop switched both
front tyres and hey-presto the problem still persisted but now in the 
opposite direction. Turned out that one of the tyres that I had on the front
was defective and some of the cords had separated internally. I suppose the
beating I had given the tyres on the previous rally had contributed somewhat
to its early demise !



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