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"Twitchy" Discovery Steering "Twitchy" Discovery Steering
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Light Overland Vehicle Tech Tech issues, tips and hints, prepping for travel
Under 3500kg vehicles, e.g. Land Cruiser, Land Rover, Subaru etc.
Photo by Ellen Delis, Lagunas Ojos del Campo, Antofalla, Catamarca

I haven't been everywhere...
but it's on my list!


Photo by Ellen Delis,
Lagunas Ojos del Campo,
Antofalla, Catamarca



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  #1  
Old 22 Mar 2009
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"Twitchy" Discovery Steering
Well our Disco is finally ready for our trip in a couple of weeks and I drove it back from the garage last night. I'm new to Land Rover so perhaps this is normal but I wondered if the steering should try and kill you?

We've got new General Grabber AT2s on and HD suspension. We drove it back empty so I always suspected it might handly poorly with no weight in it on HD springs. On the motorway the steering seemed WAY too sensitive. Around a constant corner it was absolutely fine but when driving in a straight line at speed mere millimeter movements seemed to over-correct in each direction. Under breaking this becomes significantly worse.

So is this just "the way it is" (and if so is it fixable?) or is something wrong?
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  #2  
Old 22 Mar 2009
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Twitchy Discovery
Doesn’t sound right to me.

Has it been lifted? If so the geometry may have been messed up. Or from your description it could actually be something moving around at the rear (basically giving you rear wheel steer, not a good idea!)

Or if the rear is rock hard it can create strange handling characteristics.

After I had lifted one of my G’s 40mm the steering feel was all “wrong”. Strangely enough it sorted itself out after a 100 miles or so. It was definitely NOT me getting used to it. I can only put it down to the suspension bushings settling in to their new positions.


A lot to be said for keeping things as standard as possible
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  #3  
Old 22 Mar 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by c-chaos View Post
We've got new General Grabber AT2s on and HD suspension. We drove it back empty so I always suspected it might handly poorly with no weight in it on HD springs.

That's probably your answer. having HD suspension in the front with no winch/nudgebar/extra clobber bolted on, usually makes them "twitchy".

My 110 i've just built, i knew i'd have a bar & winch on it, but until then i was running around with just a standard bumper, which made the steering geometry all wrong like RussG mentioned.
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  #4  
Old 22 Mar 2009
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Well I'm glad I'm not just imagining it. I tried to keep everything standard and didn't put a lift kit in specifically because I read about all the issues it can introduce. I felt I had to put HD suspension in just because of the route we're taking and the weight in the back. I am not putting a winch or bar on, the only extra weight we have on the front is the steering guard.

Am I correct in assuming that I have 3 choices:
a) change back to regular springs on the front
b) just put up with it
c) wholesale changes to the casters/steering etc.

We leave in 2 weeks, I strongly suspect I am going with B regardless though
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  #5  
Old 22 Mar 2009
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If you're not bolting anything heavy onto the front end, i'd slip the original (or buy some new,standard) springs back in.

Literally a 20 minite job with a jack, hi-lift, wheelbrace and a 17 or 19mm spanner (depending on how big the nut is on the bottom of the damper)

Standard springs are pretty beefy anyway, so going HD with no extra load will make things quite rough, standards give quite a nice ride.
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  #6  
Old 23 Mar 2009
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My advise is fully load it then see how it is then. When we first had the suspension done it was twitchy until we started loading him up.

Andy
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  #7  
Old 24 Mar 2009
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its probably the castor as others have said, when i put a 2" lift on the disco i used to have it did the same thing.
i assume you got new bushes allround when the suspension was done? the trailing arm bushes where they mount to the chassis used to wear out in no time on mine & always caused a similar problem but with added knocking noises.
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  #8  
Old 24 Mar 2009
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Yes, you need castor correction bushes or radius arms. Or even the castor correction swivels.
And if it is higher than standard make sure you take a load of UJ's with you!!
HD springs are fine IF you need them, but it's always best to keep the height pretty much as close to standard as you can get. +1" is fine.
Cheers,
Matt
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  #9  
Old 24 Mar 2009
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This thread is starting to depress me now :P I chose HD no lift springs exactly because of the all the complication lift can introduce.I still tend to believe that HD is required with 4 adults, full load and rough terrain though (I may just be convincing myself of this due to having already spent the cash).

I realise HD springs will have the vehicle sit higher but surely not so high that caster angles start becoming a problem? (surprised if standard height HD cause a greater than 1" lift?)
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  #10  
Old 24 Mar 2009
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ummmm, if it's pretty much standard height then you're right, it should be ok.
Maybe the tracking is simply way out?
Or worn steering box? King pins? Hub bearings? Although I'd have thought most of these things would have been look at anyway.
Tyre pressures (!) completely wrong?

Cheers,
Matt
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  #11  
Old 25 Mar 2009
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I am hoping the tyres are pumped up way too high, I'll be checking it out this weekend (vehicle is stored elsewhere). I had my mechanic go over the whole engine but I wonder how much time he actually spent looking at the steering. I'm also going to try and adjust the steering box this weekend to get rid of the bit of slack in the steering to see if that's exacerbating the problem too. Thanks for all the thoughts guys!
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  #12  
Old 26 Mar 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by c-chaos View Post
Well our Disco is finally ready for our trip in a couple of weeks and I drove it back from the garage last night. I'm new to Land Rover so perhaps this is normal but I wondered if the steering should try and kill you?

We've got new General Grabber AT2s on and HD suspension. We drove it back empty so I always suspected it might handly poorly with no weight in it on HD springs. On the motorway the steering seemed WAY too sensitive. Around a constant corner it was absolutely fine but when driving in a straight line at speed mere millimeter movements seemed to over-correct in each direction. Under breaking this becomes significantly worse.

So is this just "the way it is" (and if so is it fixable?) or is something wrong?
ask here: Land Rover UK Forums
or here :Discovery - Australian Land Rover Owners
you will get srted no problem
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  #13  
Old 19 Apr 2009
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Have you checked the steering damper?
I replaced mine with an OME, that made a great improvement.
And have you checked the suspension bushes?
The polyurethane models do give a much better ride, albeit a bit harder in some cases.
I put my Disco on OME HD suspension, which raised the ride by about 1 1/2 inch.
No problems with the UJ's sofar, and the change was about 80.000 km's ago.
Just keep them well greased.
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