Quote:
Originally Posted by BRENT in 10-uh-C
To answer your question, any wear that you can feel with your finger is too much. When you mention a couple of hundredths, that number is written as 0.020, -or twenty thousandths of an inch. That is enough to cause a shimmy if the cup springs are incorrectly adjusted, -or very difficult to steer if they are adjusted as normal.
As mentioned, when the load of the spring is properly adjusted in static or neutral position, when the tie rod is turned, the spring must be compressed further if there is wear on the steering ball. This not only make the steering more difficult as extra force on turning the steering wheel is necessary to overcome the spring pressure, -and even with extra axle caster, it also does not like to return to the neutral area (straight ahead) which can be a safety issue.
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I follow your explanation, and it makes sense at some degree of wear, but isn't .02" less than one thread pitch on the cap screw? (Guessing, not going out to the garage right now to measure it) So the added tension from the elongation would be quite small, especially as the added tension ramps up over the entire face of the ball, meaning the tension slowly increases as you steer away from center.
Given the small amount of steering play that is omni present in these cars, it seems to me that any shimmy has plenty of fertile ground to play in, not just the small tension change in ball joints.
Certainly not a pro here, just asking.