Lost Confidence In Handling After Clutch Change ( 2007 1.6 )

[Philip Male]

The fingers on my clutch gave out the other week, the local ford dealer were the only ones that could do it quickly ( and more or less the same prices as others quoting a week before they do it anyway )

Clutch and slave changed.

The clutch feels lighter which was expected, maybe not that light, but it's sorted at least.

Whats really odd is the steering feels much lighter too, the feedback from the road and feeling of grip has gone.

I had brand new Dunlops fitted the week before and the feeling compaired my old worn michelins ( on the legal limit ) was great, i love these sport response, more grip in the wet than i had in the dry before.

That feeling from the tyres has gone, in the dry it feels worse than the worn tyres in damp.

On faster constant radius bends ( large roundabouts and slip roads ) it feels unsettled and scrabbley at the front.

The confidence to push on and enjoy B roads has gone

Before the clutch change these tyres didn't understand the concept of understeer and the front end felt confident and planted with good feedback and quick response.

The difference on the feel of the car is even more noticable when going from the work vehicles during the day to the car for the drive home, this is much more pronounced than before.

So, do the clutch and steering share the same fluid? could it be this has been changed for a lighter one?

How much of the suspention of any is removed for fitting? could the tracking have been changed?

Tyre pressures have been checked and are correct.

Cheers,

[stef123]

The clutch shares the brake fluid. They will have dropped the lower arms from the knuckles to get the driveshafts out.

[TomsFocus]

It's not the fluid, as above, power steering fluid is separate and different from brake/clutch fluid.

They will have removed some suspension to get the driveshafts out though, which can easily put the wheel alignment out. I'd get the tracking checked and altered before further investigation - though Ford should know this will happen and check the tracking as part of it.

[nazsky786]

Might just be the clutch is allowing more power to get to the wheels or the tyres you have on are a harder rubber compared to the older ones you had. Go back to Ford make sure everything was all installed correctly nothing loose and have them check alignment. Nation tyres does it for £15 but you need to print the voucher.

[Philip Male]

the tyres were fitted a week before the clutch change and as before with the same ones i love them.

we have a garage a few hundred yards from work which does 4 wheel alignment.

he said the tracking was so close they can't be bothered to charge me.

the biggest change is 1 degree of camber and toe in from -0.3 to +0.3 on the front left.

i'll have to drive it home ( and hope I don't get the normal pace cars ) to see how it feels but even just coming back up the road the steering felt a little heavier which is a good thing.

if i can load it up this eve and see how it behaves we'll see where i'm at.

[Philip Male]

wheel alignment was done yesterday.
the changes were that slight they didn't charge me.
only real change was front left camber from -1.05 to -0.54 ( both within limits )
and front left toe from -0.03 which is a fraction out by .01 to 0.03
they also had a play with the pressures.
I didn't really get to try it out at NSL speeds on the B road home but it felt better, but what I had now was an overall lack of grip but it was balanced, which made me think they upped the pressures all round, remember before i had them spot on.

checked today and sure enough all were at 34-35.
dropped them back to 30 front 33 rear and it's pretty much how it was before the clutch change although again thanks to the slow !Removed! brigade i didn't get to try it on bends i know well at decent speeds.

only thing i notice on the print out is my right front camber is -0.28 and to my thinking both fronts should be leaning into each other, not both leaning to the right slightly.
should i not be matching the other side and have that at 0.54?

[Philip Male]

just a note.. i realise the negitive figures do mean that both wheels should be pointing towards each other at the top as it's from a center baseline, but the graphic chart you get suggests the RHS leans out... however despite the negitive figure the line is in the positive side of the range..

weird.

[Philip Male]

still not happy with this, sometimes just not quite right.

steering around the center is a little dead with no innitial response, turning right it's progresseve until you get understeer, which happens a lot sooner than it should.

turning left the dead center turns into a fair amount of bite which catches you out as it was dead at first, this then also turns to understeer at about the point you'd expect, however thats if the mid turn bite didn't catch you out and you've got more lock on than you actually wanted.

if it wasn't for the dead center and it reacted quickly it'd be about right.

it's the sort of thing i've had before with low pressure at the front, but by the numbers it's spot on. i may up it a couple of PSI halfway to where the garage had it and see what happens.

i suspect it's still a LHS issue as turning left isn't too bad once it's loaded on the right

[nazsky786]

Play with the PSI. Increase them then decrease them and see which works best.

[Philip Male]

put 32 on the front and brought the rears from 32 to 33.5, temp has dropped nearly 10c in the last week or two so guess they dropped a fraction. temps also not helping traction.

innitial impression over the 11 miles home, feels like i'm riding on the ball of the tread for sure, tram lined a lot more on a section of bypass thats bad for it.

got used to it, as in not the split personality of the 30psi, response is better but feels for sure like their too high and the contact patch.

will have to try it over the next few days in different conditions and speeds.

last time i had something similar i'd done my pressures when the temp was around 3c, and when it got back to where it was now the fronts were 33 and the rear 35.5, reading back the car was behaving similar, drifting with torque steer was an issue, but i also had cheap and nasty tyres that came with the car.

the gutting thing is i know what these dunlops are like and i just feel like i'm buring off the best of them with this.

[artscot79]

youre pressures are way too high bear in mind 30 front 33 rear is based on 3 twelve stone peopl,e in the car so really you can go to 28 front 30 rear if you wish 35 on the rear max is with a totally full car full of luggage and the fronts at 33 are beyond high max 32 with a full car and full of luggage.those figures are fords from the plate on my drivers door for the same car mate

[TomsFocus]

I use 35psi all round without issue...though that's on warm tyres tbf as the closest air machine is 10 miles away lol. So maybe 1 or 2 psi less in reality. Handling is fine though and the middles aren't wearing so I don't think they're overinflated tbh. Felt a bit soggy at 30psi all round when I bought it.

[Philip Male]

yer the 32/33.5 is an experiment and the harder tyrer does seem to be giving better response, but at the expense of contact patch.

it actually felt ok in the dry on the way to work today, but not right. i was getting an acceptable feel the wrong way.

i've always tried to keep to the 30/33 in the past and it's always been good.

however it was giving a sluggish feel at the front which always feels like the soft tyre waiting to catch up with the input.

33/35.5 were the pressures i found i had when i thought i had them right in a cold snap of weather a year or two ago and not what i have now.

i may try 29/32 in a few days and see what happens.

first tho i've got to empty the water of out of my right front, igets at work used the airline for a water hose and didn't clear it out after, took a second to work out what was happening, not much in there but it's now got a tiny wobble at 65.

[Philip Male]

tried a little experiment over the last few weeks to see if i get used to it, made it 30/33 with the tyres warm after a drive so they wouldn't over pressure. ( works out at 27.5/32 )

still doesn't feel right after 3 weeks of it. turning left isn't too bad, turning right isn't good.

last night it was understeer, wheel spin, pushing wide ville. it's still unreactive, then does, feels dead, no confidence in grip levels.

with the temp outside now back up a little i've brought them back to 30/33 cold and see if that improves matters.

if that doesn't i might swap fronts and rears over, they should be the same wear by now.

[youngy_315]

Might be a bit simple but are all the wheels balanced correctly? Mine had similar symptoms a month or so back. I had the front discs and pads changed and while the wheels were off I got them all balanced and 4 wheel alignment and it feels back to normal.

[Philip Male]

yep, it's aligned and ballanced.

did about 60 mixed miles today, temp actually got to 15c! roads were that horrid winter glistening you get.

it's responsive again, but i feel like i'm driving on 1" tyres, or solid plastic trolly wheels, skitting about all over the place, sure the roads don't help at the moment but it's got to be better than this, won't stick and dig in at all in bends, just skips across the surface.

again i'll leave it a few weeks, see if the tread pattern wears in a little now the pressures changed and see how it goes.

[Philip Male]

Had the wheel bearings changed yesterday as the front left would be an MOT failure.

Seems to have improved the handling esp skipping understeer at roundabouts.