Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

I got this via PM so I thought I'd post as reference for future use

Good morning.
My name is ......... From the post(s) I gather that you pretty much hands on with the pajero.
If you can please advise . I have searched the forums for a answer as to the correct turning cirle for my 1998 Pajero swb eci multi v6 3000.
The car turns sharper to the left than to the right. The schematics show a very simple configuration. I had the wheel stops checked and set. When I last week had my front (top and lower) balljoints replaced I again asked the service centre to please attend to the problem but to no avail, the wheel alignent is spot on but not the turning to each side. The pitman arm is not bend, the tie rods look to be okay from what i can see. Firstly is it not nomal to expect/assume the car to turn equal amounts to the left and the right? Is there any specfications that one can use as a yardstick to check as to what extend the lh/rh wheel is adhering to the specified turning radius? I have now been told that they plan to reduce the turning to the left so it matches the rh side! which means you cannot get around the sharper cornes in one go? Any ideas
Regards

My answer as follows

look at your suspension and find the following part that looks new in the pic - It's the pitman arm on the right side and on the left side you will have the idler arm that looks almost identical.



when you turn the wheel you will see that it moves from side to side. It gets stopped by a bolt on the inside. That bolt is the steering stop. screwing that bolt out will make the turning circle larger and vice versa.

In order to turn the bolt you first have to loosen the lock nut right against the chassis.

Yours will be turned out at different lengths and that explains the different turning circles for going left and right.

PS : I turned mine out deliberately to make the turning circle larger as tight turning circles shorten the life of CV joints and their boots.

regards
Marius

Thanks for the effort and the clear explanation. I will have look at the steering stops and adjust as you suggested.
Will let you know how it turned out(no pun intended)
Regards
Alex

You can also have a look at page 3 of this old thread.

Good morning. My turning circle is still not sorted out. I got in under car and had a look at the steering stops. On the right side which controls the truning to the left the bolt is turned out a far as it can go without falling out. There is no more adjustment to limit the amount of turn to the left, if you turn the bolt in to increase the movement it is of no consequense as the arm is allready at its outer limit.
The left side is just the other way around with the stop being turned in all the way. What beats me is that I had my new tyres done at Dunlop in September 2010. I went there yesterday explained that I wanted them to look at the steering stops. Put up on the lift and still no-one could come up with solution to the steering circle being bigger to the one side. All agreed that the steering stops were not causing the the difference. I am now going to myself measure the distance from ball joint to pitman arm(rhs) and the distance from balljoint to idler arm(lhs). Also see where the pitman arm is postioned in relationship to the postion when the wheels are facing dead ahead and the steering wheel(should be centre). If the pitman arm is is aligned either to the left or to the right I believe that the distance on the lh or right side should difer from the other side? My thinking then is to adjust the tie rod adjuster(s) to equal distance. This should result in the twofront wheels sitting at a angle (left or right when the steering wheel is centre. Take off the steering wheel turn the wheels so that they face dead ahead, the pit man should also be perpendicular (straight from front to back). Refit the steering wheel in its new centre position. have the aligment etc rechecked at the tyre place. If this does not work then I am at a loose end!
Unfortunately I do not have the budget to take my vehicle to a high tech facility(i.e the dealer).
Regards to all

That sounds like the logical solution, but it makes one ask how it got to that state?

Maybe someone dis- and reconnected the suspension and found that steering was "out" and moved it? Who knows?

Hope your fix works.

Anton

if the steering stops are turned like that and doesn't allow further adjustment it means that your pitman arm or idler arm was installed with a spline or two out of alignment and then it escalates everything from there.

Some have a specific spline missing to aid alignment and some have marks. See if you can clean it up and find some arrows or notches.