Finally Figured Out Why My Car Only Goes Left

[jackherer 543]

My 205 has had some unusual handling characteristics since I reshelled it nearly two years ago I've tried everything to resolve it and while a lot of new parts have improved things it has never been quite right.

 

The old shell handled fine and I was beginning to worry I'd rebuilt my car into a bent shell. Thinking back the one part that didn't get transferred from the old shell was the rear beam, I fitted a rebuilt 309 one. This beam had been on my friends car previously and while he had it the passenger side rear brake pads came loose and got caught in the rear wheel. At the time I refitted them and everything seemed fine but when I put the beam on my new shell I realised the caliper wasn't free to move on its sliders when tightly bolted to the suspension arm. Close inspection revealed that the caliper mounting lugs on the suspension arm were bent which must have happened when the pads were spat out. At this point I got someone to strip the beam and press the trailing arm shaft out of the arm with bent lugs and onto one from one of the old beams I had collected over the years. This arm really can only have come off of a 205 1.9 or 309 gti beam as I've never taken a disc braked beam off of any other cars but obviously they could have had parts swapped before I got hold of them. After reading about the different toe and camber settings of rear arms that fit 205/309 beams I have looked at the rear wheels and the left one looks like it is toeing in a bit while the right one is much closer to straight ahead. This would explain why my car pulls left and doesn't like going right very much. I've no idea how I ended up with an arm with a different toe to a 205/309. Am I even right in assuming that 205 1.9 and 309 GTI arms have the same toe?

 

Taking photos of suspension geometry is pretty pointless but I took these two pics with the camera as close to straight with each wheel as possible which vaguely shows the difference.

 

 

I can't believe how long its taken me to figure this out, it seems so obvious now... Anyway, I hope to get a matching pair of arms on there ASAP and then it should handle very well as I have changed pretty much everything else that wasn't 100% perfect trying to solve this issue.

[Doof 11]

I'd say your probably right but can you really rely on that technique. I mean looks how much more you can see of the back panel on the second shot compared to the first where only the headlight is really visible.

[jackherer 543]

The camera is closer to the car in the first shot.

 

If you look at the car in real life you can clearly see the difference in toe, if you are looking for it anyway.

[Pugnut 9 1 Cars]

its not just a bent stub axle is it ?

[jackherer 543]

It crossed my mind but wouldn't that put the disc out of line with the caliper? Now I think about it the caliper is at the back so it wouldn't be that out of line, I will investigate further tomorrow...

[jackherer 543]

I put some long straight boards against the rear wheels today and they are actually close to parallel, ever so slightly toed out if anything, so the toe in I was seeing on the left wheel is either an optical illusion or the whole beam is misaligned with the shell and the right wheel is toed out by the same amount the left is toed in.

 

I dropped the beam down and the studs all line up with the body in the right places, with the nuts loose it seems to have some adjustment but as they tighten it always pulls it back to the same place.Not sure what to do next, I suppose I have to pay for an aligment check to see whats actually wrong. I might put a known good rear beam on first to see what that does.

[pug_ham 242 3 Cars]

That is odd, I've had a rear brake stick before on an arm I've fitted but that was from a ex-rally car & same as your's, when the caliper bolts were tight the caliper was very difficult to move on the sliders so I swapped the caliper mount for another & that cured it.

 

The 205 & 309 GTi radius arms have different toe & camber settings;

• Manufacturer Type Year Model Engine Rear Toe In (mm) Rear Neg camber (Deg/min)
  

Peugeot 205 85-92 GTI 1.6 3.6 0/50

Peugeot 205 85-92 GTI 1.9 3.6 0/50

Peugeot 205 85-92 Rallye 1.3? 3.6 0/50

Peugeot 205 93-97 Cabrio 1.9 3.4 0/50

Peugeot 309 86-90 GTI 1.9 3.8 0/50

Peugeot 309 90-93 GTI 1.9 5.0 1/15

Peugeot 309 90-93 GTI-16 1.9 16v 5.0 1/15

A bent stub axle can cause the disc to move out of alignment to the caliper but only by a small amount & if it was hit with enough force to bend the stub axle imo the caliper mount would also be bent (like the one I had was) or the whole radius arm.

 

I rebuilt the beam on my STDT a couple of years ago & when it went for the next MOT it was noticed the left radius arm has significantly more camber than the right. It all fitted back together properly, nothing was changed during the rebuild apart from bearings. All was fine before but I have yet to take it apart to seeif I can find anything wrong. This I'm sure will involve a different pair of radius arms which might be why its not been done yet.

 

I had a strange handling quirk on my white GTi last time I drove it. It felt strangely nervous on fast lefts, like the rear was going to step out & cause a spin at any second but was stable at the same speed on any fast right.

 

When I took the beam off for a suspect bent stub axle I found one of the rear sandwich mounts was split but nothing else apparently wrong. I removed the stub axles & replaced them with known straight ones & the same radius arms etc were fine on another car after changing them.

 

Good luck finding & curing the problem. Swapping the beam doesn't take long & it might save you a tracking fee swapping it first.

 

Graham.

[jackherer 543]

Thanks for that Graham, even if this doesn't ultimately fully solve the problems I'm having it looks like I almost certainly have mismatched arms so I will definitely put a matched pair on.

 

Chances are I have one of each of these:

 

# Peugeot 309 86-90 GTI 1.9 3.8 0/50

# Peugeot 309 90-93 GTI 1.9 5.0 1/15

 

although there could be a 205 one in the mix too and the camber does look slightly different now you mention it

 

I'm definitely going to try another beam ASAP, I have a choice of known good ones of similar specs so it will be a fair test.

[jackherer 543]

I swapped the beam yesterday for a very recently rebuilt 309 beam that has been used on another 205 and is known to be good and thankfully it now handles a lot better. There is still a slight left pull but I assume this is because the tracking was set using misaligned rear wheels as a reference. Apart from the slight pull it feels very similar going left and right, bumps and lorry ruts on main roads don't deflect it off course any more and most importantly it feels like a 205 again.

 

Visually the rear wheels now look to be aligned the same, it used to look like the left wheel had toe in while the right wheel had close to zero toe, now it looks like both wheels toe in the same.

 

I'll have the tracking set properly soon, but first I'll get matching arms sorted for my beam and also I have a few new parts to fit like front coilovers so I'll wait until thats done and then hopefully I'll be able to just leave it in one piece and enjoy driving it for a while.