[shippo's zook]

1997 Sierra:
first problem is the amount of swerving the car does when it reaches 80kms
any ideas of how to fix this?
im running a shit quality lift and a set of 31s with 30mm coil spacers and bump stops will any of this affect the ride?

second one is when I push the clutch in to pull up at an intersection, the revs go down and the cars turns off, even after the car has warmed up it still happens? any ideas on how to fix this?

cheers

[whincup]

swerving over the road could be many things. for me it was wheel bearings

[shippo's zook]

righteo, thanks mate
any ideas on the other problem?

[want33s]

Radius rod bushes. Tie rods. Kingpin bearings. Wheel bearings... Have you checked any of them.

What have you done to bring back the caster after lifting it?


Check your engine to body earth lead.

[shippo's zook]

I shall try all that and get back to you
thanks heaps mate

[Parry]

Check you haven't pulled the shock through the tower in front as this happened on my old zook so it was just riding on the spring! Also run caster bushes in front...

Parry

[shippo's zook]

cheers parry, ill update the situation after I have a fiddle

[Gwagensteve]

When you say "swerving" do you mean the car wanders from left to right, or follows the camber of the road really strongly?

If so, that's likely to be caused by inadequate caster.

Are you running 2" lift springs + 30 mm spacers? That's going to be taking caster waaaay out of spec, and it's also likely you have no droop at all in the suspension at ride height. that's no going to be helping things either.

Steve.

[shippo's zook]

yeah just the smallest of road camber makes the car go left and right a lot
yeah I am?
what can I do to fix this steve?

[Gwagensteve]

The easy option is less lift

It's possible to laminate and redrill the diff brackets to roll the axle back to add caster. I've done this before with a coiler with 50mm of lift and it helped heaps.
You can buy caster bushes but these are a really bad option - they reduce flex and increase roll stiffness, and add stress to the axle brackets.
You might be able to buy caster corrected radius arms, but fabricated radius arms have been implicated in bracket failure too, and won't be legal without engineering approval.

I'd be trying to run less lift. the car will be heaps happier, and will probably even be more capable off road.

Steve.

[shippo's zook]

will taking out the spacers and going back to a set of 30s or something smaller help at all?

[Gwagensteve]

Tyre size isn't really relevant, but make sure you're tyres arent overinflated. Yes, taking the spacers out will help heaps. It won't make it as good as it could be with some correction, but it will be heaps better.

Steve.

[shippo's zook]

thanks a million Steve, been as massive help

any idea on the car turning off?
also when im in neutral and i try hold the revs at 1500 its misses and drops back to 1000 then goes back up and so forth but at 2000rpms it holds the revs fine?
anything below 1000 it stalls?

[Reubs]

shippo's zook wrote:

any idea on the car turning off?
also when im in neutral and i try hold the revs at 1500 its misses and drops back to 1000 then goes back up and so forth but at 2000rpms it holds the revs fine?
anything below 1000 it stalls?

Sounds like your idle jet in the carby is blocked.

Pull the carby down, clean idle jet and reassemble it. It would be a good idea to buy a carby rebuild kit before you do this as it's likely you'll damage the gaskets when you pull it apart if it hasn't been apart in a long time.

It's a fiddly job but shouldn't take a reasonably mechanically minded person longer than an hour to do. Took me 45 minutes and the bulk of the carby body can be left in place while you do the job. The hardest bits are removing the linkages as the circlips are easily lost and loosening the phillips head screws - an impact driver is a good idea to have in case these are hard to undo.

[shippo's zook]

thanks mate
anyone know if a ford courier alternator can go into a 1997 Sierra?
I have the altenator and a plug off the courier, only problem is the pulley is a V one and the sierra's is multi ribbed?

cheers

[Gwagensteve]

Wow, that's a left field question.

Maybe, maybe not. You'd have to suck it and see. It's certainly not a common conversion. I'd be going to EF/EL falcon - it's well proven, as cheap as an alternator gets, and provides 100A of peak output. Here a link.

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5529

I'd ignore the reference to the EA falcon. I think people have made them fit but they are a pain to work with. EF/EL is the way to go.

Steve.

PS my guess is you have the courier one laying around? Just because you have already have something doesn't always make it a good idea.

[shippo's zook]

can anyone tell me some good brands of tyres for a good price?
im after some 30 inch all terrains