by "lone_liberal" (token-liberal)
Published 06/25/2017 at 23:23
by "lone_liberal" (token-liberal)
Published 06/25/2017 at 23:23
No Tags
STARS: 1
Today I finally had a chance to try to hunt down what was causing all of the slop in the Camaro’s steering. Once I got it up and on stands and started looking it was pretty obvious that the steering box was the culprit.
At that point I was resigned to getting a replacement, but since it wasn’t going to do any harm I thought I’d try adjusting it to see if that did anything at all. To my complete shock it seems to have done the trick. Once I tightened it up most of the slop went away and there wasn’t any binding or any other signs of being too tight.
Time to declare victory, right? Wrong. I took it for a test drive and while the steering slop did indeed greatly improve the car still wanders pretty badly. It just doesn’t seem to track straight and wanders with every imperfection in the road.
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"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
06/26/2017 at 06:06, STARS: 0
maybe the tyres are part of the problem?
"deekster_caddy" (deekster_caddy)
06/26/2017 at 06:50, STARS: 0
Check everything! I had a similar issue in my ‘73 buick and it was a loose idler arm.
"jimz" (jimz)
06/26/2017 at 07:53, STARS: 0
If it’s a recirculating ball steering gear, there’s really nothing to “adjust.” All you can do is tighten a screw to bind things which makes it feel tighter but doesn’t actually do anything about free play.
"lone_liberal" (token-liberal)
06/26/2017 at 10:33, STARS: 0
Tightening it is supposed to decrease the lash and had a visible impact on the amount of free play between the column shaft movement and the Pitman arm movement. If you say that it didn’t actually do anything I’ll take your word for it but I’ll take the result.
"lone_liberal" (token-liberal)
06/26/2017 at 10:56, STARS: 0
I’m debating with myself whether to spend the time to go through everything and find what is worn out or just bite the bullet and replace it all. I have no idea if any of the previous owners did any maintenance on it and for all I know it’s all 45 years old.
"deekster_caddy" (deekster_caddy)
06/28/2017 at 12:41, STARS: 0
Really once you add it all up new tie rods, sleeves, center link and idler aren’t that expensive, especially compared to having something fail unexpectedly...
"lone_liberal" (token-liberal)
06/28/2017 at 14:38, STARS: 1
I did the same arithmetic and hit Rock Auto with my credit card in hand. Hopefully this weekend will see the issue taken care of.