[mulfred2001]

I am in the middle of restoring my 1966 Valiant Station Wagon V200 273ci. My dad bought the car new and it has been in the family ever since. I have recently replaced all of the steering component parts--Yes, everything was replaced including upper/lower control arm bushings. I purchased a rebuilt steering gear, got the car aligned and my car wanders on the freeway as well as has a lot of movement in the steering wheel when turned before the wheels start to move. Right after the rebuild the car had bias ply tires mounted on it. I purchased a set of radials for it thinking that this might help the wandering problem, but it did not. My thought was that the rebuilt steering gear might have worn parts, but I have replaced it with 2 other gears from the same re-manufacturer and each of them give me the same feeling that I have to turn the steering wheel about 1/8th of a turn before the steering system starts to react to the input. I have the shop manual on the car and I have made the adjustment to the worm gear at the top of the gear itself. I noticed that when I made a slight adjustment to it it just made the steering harder to turn the wheel, but the sloppy feel still remains. I emailed a few steering gear re-manufacturers and found out that none of them replace any hard parts in the rebuilding process. The car also is not capable of holding a straight line while on the interstate, I have to constantly correct it. I had a 1963 Belevedere when I was in high school that I upgraded to power steering and from what I remember it didn't have all of this slop.

It just might be me since I am used to driving an Acura CL Type S that the old style steering systems inherently had slop in them, but I find that really hard to believe. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[dana44]

That does seem like a lot of movement even for a manual steering set of gears. Any possibility the movement is from the wheel bearings or the idler arm having the slop?

 

[Bearhawke]

OK: quick and dirty; park the front tires of your Valiant on some asphalt and have someone turn the steering wheel back and forth as someone is watching the whole linkage from the steering column down to the tie rod ends. If I were a gamblin' man; I'd wager you have either a loose Pitman arm @ the centerlink and/or a worn coupling/bushing between the gear and the steering wheel.

 

[KOG]

Alignment has a vast effect on straight line tracking. It needs to be aligned at 1/8 degree negative camber, 0 toe and all the positive caster you can get on it with that camber.

Have you looked at the rear springs? Any lateral slop in the rear suspension will also show up as "steering" slop. Bad bushings on the front of the rear springs have a lot of effect, bad bushings on the rear links will also contribute. Once you done all of those things, adding a front sway bar (the V8 may have had a small one, sixes did not until about 73) can also help straight line tracking as well as cornering. Firm Feel is one gear rebuilder who can do better than stock boxes.