Loose steering on new power steering gear

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jhdeval

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Basically as the subject says I changed the steering gear and it was good for a few days. I now the steering is very loose like nearly a quarter turn of the steering wheel before the assist kicks in. Supposedly all the settings wereset to factory settings.
 
Have you narrowed down where the play is? The box or idler arm, pitman arm, tie rod ends, steering column joint at the box. Could be coming from a combination of all or some of the above.
 
You mean the steering shaft has play before the steering gear starts to move? Do you have the original joint on the car that connects the steering shaft to the box? If so there is two steel pieces and a tension spring that go inside the square cup looking piece that attaches to the steering box with a roll pin. Could it be you left them out or not installed right?
 
No that part was rebuilt a few months ago. I mean when I turn the wheel there is nearly a quarter turn before the wheels turn. It is not after the steering gear because when I was replacing the gear I could turn the wheels and the pitman arm would move immediately. It is somewhere in the steering gear I believe.
 
Is it new or rebuilt? May be under warranty? If not they do have a adjustment screw on top and is held in place with a lock nut.
 
It is a rebuilt which I believe has a warranty. My car is an early a and new are hard to come by. I don't want to have to pull it again especially if it something like a setting.
 
I went to the garage to see if I could find pamphlets that came with the gear. Could not find it but I decided to see if I could see anything and I found the bolts holding it down are a bit loose. I think tightening them will resolve it.

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I've posted this several times before...
Chrysler Corp. provided majority of funds for R&D which produced what we now know as DuPont Loctite. It was all about these 3 bolts which were a serious problem in early days. The bolts would loosen then ruin the holes in the gear box and the nuts welded in the K, rendering then impossible to fix.They also used bolts with special profile threads ( those also have special heads ) for a while.
 
I have not taken it on the road yet but the steering gear does not move as it did before. I pulled each bolt including the nightmare bolt behind the exhaust pipe and dropped some thread lock on each bolt and put it back and tightened back down.

Reddish thank you for recommending the thread locker.

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