This is sort of related. The first D1 I had I installed new springs (2 inch lift), shocks, and did some other front end work. I couldn’t license it in the city I lived at the time because I also did a 300tdi R380 swap. The plan was to do all the work and flat tow it 1100 miles to our other place where no emissions inspections were required for licensing.
Previously, when I did suspension work I would get the alignment close enough to drive to an alignment shop.
On this one I put extra effort into getting the alignment as straight as possible as I didn’t want to cause excess wear on the new tires by towing it 1100 miles out of alignment.
Well, my “eyeball” alignment was too straight, not enough toe or perhaps none at all. When it reached 65 mph it would
”fishtail” a frightening amount. I kept it under 60 mph for about 100 miles and decided it just wasn’t going to work. The only tools I had with me were wrenches to reconnect the driveshaft so I could drive it into my shop at my destination. I pulled into a truck stop, disconnected the tow bar, and reconnected the driveshafts. I then drove it the rest of the way and my wife drove the tow vehicle.
Previously, with the new 300tdi and 5 speed, it hadn’t done more than short trips around the block. Fortunately, it ran quite well the whole trip and I had no problems on its initial 1000 mile run. However, the steering tracked in whatever direction the steering wheel was turned with no return to center.
So, to make a long story short, proper toe is rather important. All that being said, I learned a lot about alignment adjustment after that. As I probably only put a few thousand miles on the D1 each year, I now do alignments entirely myself. My thought was the tires will age out well before they wear out even if the alignment isn’t perfect. I measure carefully and make adjustments based on how it steers. The last one only took a couple test drives and adjustments to get it steering properly and the steering wheel centered. I have now put about 12,000 miles on my first “hand” alignment. I can’t see any difference in tire wear and it steers just as it should.
Conventional wisdom would say I put a lot of time in to save $100 on a shop alignment. But, considering the local alignment shop is a 45 minute drive in each direction plus the 90 ish minutes at the shop, I am ok with the trade off.
I recently installed a new steering gearbox in another one. It steers as tight as a new car. On that note, on a D1 you can’t really adjust the gearbox tighter properly by just turning the screw on top of the box. There are three adjustments and two of them require disassembly of the gearbox. Adjusting only the top will make it harder to turn, masking the problem temporarily. If your gearbox is loose, it’s time for a refurb. On that note, there is a Defender guy that rebuilds them. It has become hard to get a rebuilt box otherwise.
