I invested some money and fun in rebuilding an old Mk1 my son left behind when he left home. It has an ABF, Supersprint exhaust, 3.94 FD, ACD close ratio gears, Quaife diff etc and it ran nicely on track on Toyo T1R's on 15" wheels. He has now claimed it back and has invested in marginally wider (lighter) wheels and well considered stickier track focussed tyres (cant remember the make) He brought it around claiming it pulled a lot to the right even after a Hunter 4 wheel alignment and a good going over by an experienced mechanic friend of his. I drove it subsequently and it does pull (a bit) on hard acceleration and I think its torque steer due to the new tyres. The Quaife twitches the car in the wet when accelerating hard but the specific pull right is not very noticeable although there a little. He also says it runs and steers ok at average throttle but at high speeds on a motorway will pull right slightly with a need to correct and tends to move left when coming off the throttle and then tracks straight and true. The box has short ratios so it maxes out at 125ish mph at 6500rpm Its dead straight toe and 1.3 degrees camber. Having checked, the drive shafts are fine, the bearings aren't binding and neither are the brakes and the steering is ok as well. At his motorway speed (cough) its doing about 4500rpm so near optimum power/torque. When braking it pulls up straight from high speeds with no hands on the steering wheel. The only other aspect is that the last time we were at Bedford Autodrome the Toyos had finally gone down to about 4mm tread and warmed up nicely with even wear and the tread edges were not feathering any more and later in the day it did start to pull to the right when accelerating, which is why he changed the tyres. He also says its ok on damp roads and cambered country lanes but on flat dry roads (motorways etc) its much more noticeable. Any opinions/experiences as I wonder if its a combination of stickier tyres and torque steer that we didn't notice so much with the Toyos.
Hmm... I do get some of what you explain on mine, if it is the same thing. I have a MK2 though, but run the same ATB albeit with a 4.25 FDR. hotgolf might be able to shed some light, if this is as a result of the ATB.
They aren't usually that bad, as VW helpfully gave the mk1 a hollow longer driveshaft, to help balance forces out. I would be looking for play somewhere, inner or outer trackrod ends, steering rack, balljoints or wishbone bushes, top mounts, even a knacked damper Unusual tyre wear? Tyre pressures, tracking, camber, even something amiss with the rear suspension Jon
Thanks for the responses, much appreciated. I'll have an other look. The steering linkages/joints have absolutely no slack and new (rubber) rack mounts that don't move much when turning at a standstill so I don't think its steering related. The rear suspension has had new dampers/springs and is polybushed where it attaches to the body however the Hunter read out shows 30 minutes toe in on the drivers side with 49 minute camber (passenger side is 7 minutes and one degree camber) which is why we are currently about to fit triangulation to the trailing arms but I cant see those figures affecting the car in this way. I think the (relatively new) OEM control arm bushes might be the culprit and maybe poly bushes on the control arms will help. Swapping the wheels back to original today to see what happens and will report back. Any opinions from others gratefully received. PS: in the Haynes manual I seem to recall it shows a weight on the offside drive shaft (the long one) for higher powered Golfs (like (19 and 20) in the MK2 one shown below) - I don't have that but then again we did not have this issue before.
Have the rear beam locating bushes been changed / are they poly ? What size wheels / offset and tyres - what are the `stickier` tyres ? You have a mix of OE rubber and poly in there, maybe it`s not all `working` together ?
The rear beam bushes are new and poly tyres are nankang ns2r 195/55/15 team dynamic pro race 3 15x7 offset et 38 so not an aggressive offset cheers jonny
Update - stuck the original wheels/tyres on it and no problem - swapped the new wheels/tyres front to back and the issue has gone - must be a faulty tyre squirming!!
Wheel offset can cause issues such as these. Can you confirm the wheel size and offset for each set? Gurds
