Steering wheel - alignment

1 Owing to the fact that the steering wheel is located on a hexagon shaped steering shaft, it may be difficult to obtain perfect steering wheel alignment due to lack of fine adjustment.

2 It is therefore acceptable to adjust the tierods to give unequal lengths.

3 Check that the front roadwheels are in the straight-ahead position and that the toe setting is as specified.

4 If the steering wheel is more than 30° out of alignment, remove it and centralise it as much as possible on its shaft.

5 To adjust the steering wheel through a small angle, carry out the following operations.

6 Release the tie-rod balljoint locknuts.

7 Turn one tie-rod clockwise and the opposite one anti-clockwise by the identical amount. For every 1° of steering wheel angular error, turn each tie-rod through 30°.

8 Once the steering wheel has been centralised (front wheels in straight-ahead position), retighten the tie-rod balljoint locknuts.

9 Although the toe setting should not have altered, check the front wheel alignment as described in Section 27.

    See also:

    Engine/manual gearbox assembly - reconnection and refitting
    1 Reverse the procedure described in Section 11, noting the following points. 2 Before attempting to reconnect the engine to the gearbox, check that the clutch friction disc is centralised. This i ...

    Exhaust system - renewal
    1 The layout of the exhaust system varies considerably according to model and engine. All except the RS Turbo versions can be renewed in sections; coupling sleeves are supplied, enabling an old se ...

    Door window glass and regulator - removal and refitting
    Front door window glass - models with manual windows Saloon, Estate and Van models Removal 1 Remove the door trim panel, as described in Section 11. 2 Carefully peel back the waterproof sheet f ...