I've been chasing a loose steering gremlin and think i've found the problem. I have about a 1/4-turn of play in the steering wheel and discovered the sector shaft of the steering gear has some lateral movement. Can this be removed by tightening the adjuster nut on the top of the gear box? See attached video files.

Thanks,

Rodney

 

Time for a new box, or at least a rebuild. The shaft should not move side to side. It's really amazing that is not leaking.

 

Depending on year/model, there may also be the over center adjustment which is a quick on-car job. But over a 50+ year history someone in the car’s past may have already done this.

And frankly modern boxes work better. If you have a Cutlass, there are tons of great options. The edge of these improvements would include a new steering box, idler arm, center link and tie rod ends, beyond that maybe ball joints & A-arm bushings too depending on age/condition of your current front suspension components.

Subjectively, good steering feels great adn there have been many improvements over what was good stuff in the 60’s and 70’s

Hope that helps
Chris

 

I had a local shop convert my original, vari-ratio gear box to a fixed 12.7:1 ratio so I plan to take it back to them to get rid of the slop. With the conversion to a quicker ratio, the power assist is too much; the steering feel is very light so I'd like to tone it down a bit while I have the gear out of the car. I thought there were torsion springs or something similar inside the gear box that could be swapped for stiffer parts. Looking at the exploded diagram, I don't see them. What part needs to be changed to reduce the amount of power assist?

Thanks,

Rodney

 

The torsion bar that controls steering feel is inside the stub shaft assembly. Note the two different diameter torsion bars in this photo. Thicker will provide less steering assist.




The other way to adjust steering feel is to lower the pressure at the pump output port. There are multiple aftermarket kits available to do this, either by shimming the existing valve, replacing the existing valve, or adding an inline adjustable valve.

 

Joe:
I found this shimming kit from Borgeson to reduce the pump pressure; seems simple enough. Which method do you think is the best approach: lowering the pump pressure or increasing torsion stiffness?

Thanks,

Rodney

 

Shimming the pump output valve is MUCH easier than replacing the torsion bar, and it can be difficult to source the bar you want anyway.

 

Let us know how that Borgeson kit works.

 

Well after some deliberation, I decided to replace the poorly rebuilt (original) steering gear with a reman unit from Lares. I debated returning my original gear to the local shop that rebuilt it back in 2014 but figured if he did a poor job the first time he could very well do it poorly the second time and I'm really not fond of the physical gymnastics required to make this swap so I bought a Lares 970 unit (3.25 turns lock-to-lock which is roughly the same 12.7:1 ratio of my current, rebuilt gear. I started the swap yesterday and finished up after work today. Took the car for a drive and happy to report the Lares gear is much tighter although not a tight as the rack & pinion in my 4Runner. One nice surprise is the driving feel improved. It's no longer one-finger steering; its much more firm almost too firm as it doesn't return to center as quickly as the bad gear I removed. I'm hoping it loosens up a bit with some driving. I bought the Borgeson shim kit for the pump but looks like I wont be using it as I happy with the feel of the Lares unit. Just thought I'd report back.

Rodney