Sloppy Steering in '65 Valiant Manual Box
Drove the Valiant from its purchase point of Port Angelis (state of Washington) to La Paz, BCS, Mexico (with a stop of several years in California) without having had even a flat tire (2,250 miles). Since then, only an occaisonal 20 mile round trip to an annual local car show. However, during the last car show trip I found noticeable play in the factory manual steering. Today I finally got around to inspecting the steering linkage. With the jack stands supported the front frame rails, I spun the front tires and found no problem. Then crawled underneath and my visual inspection found nothing. Then I grabbed one tire and while turning it side to side (left to right, right to left) I found what I believe is known as an "idler arm" was moving up and down at the point where it butts up against the frame/K member.
I have not done any steering linkage/front end repairs on a Mopar in decades. I do remember using a pickle fork one time doing something or other. Well, that's the story and looking forward to getting his repaired, hopefully taking care of it myself.
Drove the Valiant from its purchase point of Port Angelis (state of Washington) to La Paz, BCS, Mexico (with a stop of several years in California) without having had even a flat tire (2,250 miles). Since then, only an occaisonal 20 mile round trip to an annual local car show. However, during the last car show trip I found noticeable play in the factory manual steering. Today I finally got around to inspecting the steering linkage. With the jack stands supported the front frame rails, I spun the front tires and found no problem. Then crawled underneath and my visual inspection found nothing. Then I grabbed one tire and while turning it side to side (left to right, right to left) I found what I believe is known as an "idler arm" was moving up and down at the point where it butts up against the frame/K member.
I have not done any steering linkage/front end repairs on a Mopar in decades. I do remember using a pickle fork one time doing something or other. Well, that's the story and looking forward to getting his repaired, hopefully taking care of it myself.
