Steering Arm Replacement

We noticed quite a while ago (last year in fact) that one of our steering arms was badly bent at the join with the track rod end.  Since we are skipping a couple of race events, after a busy summer, this job has now reached the top of the priority list.

Having put the car on axle stands, removed the wheel and front under-tray, you can get access to the inner joint of the steering arm.

There is a design fault though!  The steering column wont extend far enough to clear the front sub-frame and enable you to get a spanner onto the inner joint.  As it happens we had the perfect offset 32mm wrench already in our toolbox.  It's a special offset wrench for tightening a Ford / BMW engine fan from the 1990's. 

With the inner joint undone it took another half an hour to reassemble, ensuring the same no. of threads were showing at the adjustment end so the tracking would not be wildly out.

Once finished we reset the tracking using our basic strings approach, setting 2mm of tow out in place of our previous straight alignment.  In theory this will help the car turn in on the corners.  This is quite aggressive and we'll see if it makes a difference when we practice for the Donnington Park round in October.