73stroked duster
Well-Known Member
1972 duster. Steering is very sloppy. Replaced both arms. The rest of the linkage seems to be ok. Would the problem be the steering gear?
Hi, Per your diagram, this is the steering box, correct? Ive heard not to turn the screw or nut to much, which do you do first please, I rebuilt my front end with a PST kit, everything new. Still has some slack in the column turning the steering wheel, Please advise when you can, Thanks.If everything else is fine. Could be the gears in the box are worn and you can turn the adjuster bolt on the steering box.
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Yes, you dont want to turn it to much. It is on the steering box. You will start off by loosening the nut then when you turn the screw in the center you will adjust it by 1/8 turns at a time. Adjust it then drive it a bit then adjust drive etc. Also, make sure you shaft is solid and not the problem before adjusting. Depending on how worn out the box is you may be able to get it better but not perfect.
Someone who is not familiar could take this to mean "they just drove terrible." Not true. Before I tore the 67 apart, with modern radials, heavier T bars, a factory anti-sway bar and decent shocks, it handled pretty great. 70-100 on a decent highway? No problem. going around curves? Felt great, a pleasure.The steering boxes weren't great from the factory when new. 50 years later, they terrible. When suggesting and adjustment on a factory box, nobody seems to do this properly. The first thing you are supposed to do is back off the sector lash. You must adjust the preload on the worm first. Once that is set, then you can adjust the lash with the sector.
Or, treat your self to modern, bolt in steering...Bergmanautocraft.com
It sounds like you are misunderstanding my comment. Sure, after your suspension is fully modified, it feels good. That's not what I said. I've driven many unrestored cars with low mileage. The steering isn't good. Add a 100,000 miles, if the car even could go that far and comment on the steering, especially compared to what everyone is used to driving today,Someone who is not familiar could take this to mean "they just drove terrible." Not true. Before I tore the 67 apart, with modern radials, heavier T bars, a factory anti-sway bar and decent shocks, it handled pretty great. 70-100 on a decent highway? No problem. going around curves? Felt great, a pleasure.
My point is, don't just dismiss stock components as "bad" unless they are actually worn/ loose/ defective.
Again, this is not the topic. The steering on these cars was poor when new and worse with wear.No, not "fully modified." Just rebuilt with good ball joints, tie rod ends, bushings. "We" drove these girls hundreds of thousands of miles. My old 70RR had over 140K on the clock when I sold it, with one front end rebuild. Admittedly, it had the best T bars the factory had, but nothing else was "modified" or aftermarket.
Even so, that old girl would handle circles around most any "family sedan" of the era
MY point is you don't need to "fully modify" anything, necessarily, to get it to go down the road, drive decent, and be perfectly safe at elevated highway speeds. Auto-X? That may be a different matter.
Again, this is not the topic. The steering on these cars was poor when new and worse with wear.