Removing slop in manual steering

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Map63Vette

Map63Vette

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So now that I've got the 5.7 humming along nicely in the car it's actually pretty pleasant to drive aside from the rather wandery steering. I've tried adjusting the preload using the sector shaft screw on the top of the box, but it's still pretty bad. I have a good quarter turn or so of the steering wheel while cruising down the road that results in pretty much no directional change for the car.

I've been thinking about rebuilding the box and have been looking through the threads here on rebuilds for some advice and tips, but I think the big question I have is what all should I be looking into replacing? Pretty sure the box is the stock 24:1 ratio, which is really fine as far as I'm concerned. It's plenty light while cruising down the road, but it's a good workout if you have to do a three point turn or in parking lots in general, so I don't necessarily care to upgrade to a faster ratio. Will a simple tear down and repack with grease help to take up the slack in the wheel or do I need to be thinking about a full rebuild with gears and everything?
 
Also check to make sure the box is not moving on the K member when you turn it. There's three nuts that hold in down and if they are loose the box could be moving when you turn the wheel..
 
If the box itself really has that much play in it, you'll need to replace the worm gear.

But, there's a good chance that play is in the rag joint, tie rod ends, centerlink, pitman and idler etc...

Definitely check to see if the box is moving though. The bolts can work themselves loose, but also the steering box mount can come loose from the K frame. When I pulled the K member out of my '74 parts car I found that the weld that ran down the entire inside of the steering box mount had failed, so every time the wheel was turned the entire steering box would move. The bolts to the mount were tight, but the entire mount was moving.
 
I rebuilt the whole front end when I swapped the engine out, so I'm pretty sure everything is in good shape. Did new poly upper bushings, rubber lowers, new strut rod bushings, and new upper ball joints. This was mainly because I actually had a lot of the parts sitting around from a previous 69 Charger project and I got a few when I bought the car. I didn't change the lower ball joints or the tie rod ends because they were in good shape and looked pretty new when I checked them out and the car drove pretty well with the previous power steering. Swapped the K frame to a later style 73+ for the spool mounts and got a matching idler arm to replace my 67 style setup.

I'll try to take a closer look at all the pieces when I turn the wheel this week/weekend. Pretty sure the box should be solidly mounted since I replaced it myself not that long ago, but I suppose it may have worked a little loose.
 
1/4 turn sounds pretty scary.

I have a quick ratio internal kit brand new in the bag that I never used since I bought a new entire unit.
I can dig it up and get part #'s if you like.

Pm me if interested.
 
Just to clarify in case people have the wrong mental picture, it feels like a quarter turn of slop total, not 1/4 turn either direction, so more like an 1/8 of a turn from center before it hits any noticeable resistance. If you turn it till it just hits resistance the car may drift a little one direction, but it's not like making a lane change. I've always just sort of attributed it to old fashioned steering since I have a 71 Vette that had a similar sort of sensation, though it has power steering.

I've pretty much rebuilt the whole system on it now and it's gotten rid of a lot of the "loose" feeling and some of the slop, though it is just a little soft at center where it's probably more worn on the steering gears and in the control valve (uses a hydraulic ram assist instead of powering the sector directly like a Mopar). Got to thinking if it fixed the Vette that maybe I could clean up the Dart as well.
 
..turn your steering shaft with your hand under the hood and watch the box
i had that problem and it was loose mounting bolts...just an easy check
 
To properly adjust a steering box you have to loosen lock nut on top of box and back out screw to relieve tension. Then loosen the large lock nut where the steering shaft from the steering wheel enters the box. Use a very larger pair of channel locks. Then tighten the inner collar where the steering wheel shaft enters the box. I use a screw driver and hammer to tap that inner collar snug. Be easy you do not want to crack it cause its made of aluminum. Spray WD-40 on it to loosen it up. Retighten large lock nut. Now put steering wheel on center and snug up that top screw and then tighten the lock nut on the top while holding screw still. This procedure is from the Factory Service Manual. You can't just tighten up that top screw and think you are done. That is only half the adjustment of a manual box. That collar/lock nut where the steering wheel shaft goes into the box must be adjust FIRST to get all the slack out of those bearings FIRST then you adjust the slack out of that top screw SECOND. You must have all tension off that top screw before adjusting the bearing preload via the large collar.

That should get the slack out of the box if the bearings are half decent. I rebuilt my manual box myself with a kit from Firm Feel. You need a press for some of the bearings through.
 
Ah, that makes some sense on the adjustment procedure. I've got 10 little ton hydraulic jack style press, so that shouldn't be a problem assuming I can get access where I need it. I was looking at the Firm Feel kits and trying to decide what I wanted to do. I could almost get one of their boxes for the price of some their rebuild kits (depending on the condition of my box), but I've seen where some people have listed a lot of the part numbers to source the parts individually. I'll have to look around see if I can get any of them here.
 
I would turn the shaft by hand under the hood also. There may be play in the box coupling. Just a small amount of lost motion there will equal what seems like a mile with the large diameter stock steering wheel.
If the input shaft moves in and out of the upper seal more than 1/16th changing the preload on those bearings may not help much.
 
340sFastback said:
To properly adjust a steering box you have to loosen lock nut on top of box and back out screw to relieve tension. Then loosen the large lock nut where the steering shaft from the steering wheel enters the box. Use a very larger pair of channel locks. Then tighten the inner collar where the steering wheel shaft enters the box. I use a screw driver and hammer to tap that inner collar snug. Be easy you do not want to crack it cause its made of aluminum. Spray WD-40 on it to loosen it up. Retighten large lock nut. Now put steering wheel on center and snug up that top screw and then tighten the lock nut on the top while holding screw still. This procedure is from the Factory Service Manual. You can't just tighten up that top screw and think you are done. That is only half the adjustment of a manual box. That collar/lock nut where the steering wheel shaft goes into the box must be adjust FIRST to get all the slack out of those bearings FIRST then you adjust the slack out of that top screw SECOND. You must have all tension off that top screw before adjusting the bearing preload via the large collar.

That should get the slack out of the box if the bearings are half decent. I rebuilt my manual box myself with a kit from Firm Feel. You need a press for some of the bearings through.
Click to expand...

thats how its done^^^^^
 
RedFish said:
I would turn the shaft by hand under the hood also. There may be play in the box coupling. Just a small amount of lost motion there will equal what seems like a mile with the large diameter stock steering wheel.
If the input shaft moves in and out of the upper seal more than 1/16th changing the preload on those bearings may not help much.
Click to expand...

You are right on with the input shaft moving in and out. My steering box had play with input shaft motion was so bad there was no fix. I found a good box to replace and it drove like a new car.
 
That was fast - 21 hours from initial post to repaired and tested, and you probably slept 8 hrs of it. I wish my projects went that quick.
Edit - as Rosanna on SNL would say, "Never mind". I mixed up the OP.

Try what 340sFastback says. I read that somewhere too. You have to adjust the wormshaft first before adjusting the sector shaft. I assume there is a factory tool to turn the wormshaft head. I have seen industrial "pin wrenches". I just put 2 rods in the holes and used a pry bar to remove mine. The threads will be clean when I re-assemble so I should have a feel for when it is just tight.
 
Lol, I haven't quite gotten around to fixing it yet, though I did wiggle the steering shaft some at lunch to see if there was noticable play in it. There is a little bit of give in the coupler between the box and column, but until I can hold the coupler solid and try turning the wheel to see how much worse that gets by the time it makes it to the steering wheel I'm still shooting in the dark. I'll probably get under it this weekend and check out all the joints and try to hold them solid one at a time to see where the issue is. Like mentioned, lots of little problems can all stack up to seem pretty major by the end of it. Each joint may have just barely noticeable wiggle, but by the time they all add together and get multiplied by the steering ratio it can be a lot of slop.
 
The only other thing I would add is that it is much easier to do the adjustments with the box out of the car and in a vise. The service manual gives step by step instructions on how to do it. With it out of the car, it's easier to get to, plus you don't have the feedback associated with the steering column or the front end linkage to throw you off. It's not like it's difficult to remove. The pitman arm nut, the steering shaft coupler and three bolts and she's out.
 
Yeah, assuming I can snake it through the headers. Since I have the 5.7 the heads are pretty wide and sit almost over the box some. I took a look at it though and I think with the pitman arm off I may just be able to slide it over toward the fender enough to pull it up and out. Have to get a puller for the pitman at some point as well.
 
Well, looks like the main culprit was the box mounting bolts. Apparently they backed out pretty bad in the year I've had the box in the car. The single outside bolt wasn't horrible, but the two inside bolts had backed out to a noticeable gap. Tightened them up and cranked the wheel a few times and it looks like the rest of the system is pretty stable, but the lower sector shaft bushing/bearing may be a little sketchy. You can see the shaft torquing to the side just a bit relative to the bottom of the box.
 
Loctite will keep them tight unless they a run loose long enough to woller out the holes in the box.
 
Yeah, that crossed my mind. I think I may take them out tomorrow and loctite them before I do any significant driving. A faster gear set is sounding a little more appealing. I still have a "soft" zone around center on the steering wheel (not much for resistance that you can feel), but if you look close enough you can see the wheels are just barely moving, so it's not necessarily slop. Don't know if a fast ratio gear set would change that or not. It looked like Firm Feel was offering the 16:1 set, but does anyone still make a 20:1 set?
 
I only have on thing to add. You said that you replaced the upper A arm bushings? Did you replace them with offset bushings? If you are running radial tires on the stock offset upper control arm bushings then you will have negative caster. Meaning the upper A arm will lead the lower A arm causing to a "looser" feeling while driving. The stock bias ply tires of the day created a natural positive caster keeping the feel "tighter." If you replace the bushings with offset pieces, then it will move the upper A arm back behind the lower, cause the wheel to "caster" in a straight line, tightening up the steering.

At least that is my understanding of the geometry.
 
Nope, I've got plain poly replacements with no offset. I never thought about the stiffer/softer tires affecting geometry like that, but it does make sense. I set the ride height and had the car aligned after I did the engine swap and they managed to get it real close to stock specs. One side just made it, but is pretty much at the full limit of the eccentric bolt. The other is at the full limit, but it's not too far off from what it's supposed to be. I have the printout somewhere, I want to say it was only a quarter degree or less from the stock setting.
 
Who was it that was working on a kick-a idler arm for a body mopars that eliminated the sloppy, rubbery ball joint and used a roller bearing set up? Was it firm feel or flaming river or someone?
I know the crappy idler arms can make your steering sloppy.
 
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