Tight Steering after Rack replacement...

[Eric]

Here's my problem:

My rack was getting crappy, binding when cold, etc., so I put in a used one while I had things apart to change my head gasket.

I disconnected it at the inner, spherical tie rod ends, so as not to disturb the alignment.

I had a hard time with the column universal, and never really felt good about how it went back together.

The steering felt tight right away, before the wheels were even on the ground (before putting it in, I had been able turn the splined input shaft on the rack by hand by grasping it firmly), but I went ahead and filled the reservoir and bled it by turning lock to lock. The steering went from very hard to the same way it had been when up in the air, but never got any better. Now it is hard enough that I would be very nervous driving above 40mph because it tends to just want to stay pointing in one direction, and requires a bit of a nudge to start it moving in either direction (does not self-return at all after turns).

The reservoir is new, I got all of the old fluid out of the rack before putting it in, I bled the pump through by running a tank of fluid through it by turning it by hand, and it s now full to the right level with Dextron III.

I suspect some sort of binding associated with the universal, but wanted to see whether anyone else had had and solved this problem. I searched and found two people who described the same symptoms, but neither described actually figuring out what was wrong.

Thanks,

- Eric

[Bluebimma]

If im not mistaken, there is a large hexhead on the rack that can be turned to adjust how tight the rack is, which allows the rck to come back to the original position or stay firm in the direction it was turned.

[Eric]

Thanks anyway, Blue, but I figured it out.

The steering column universal joint was frozen.

The car has been laid up for a while, while I've done other work on it, and in the course of sitting still, the U-joint tightened up.

I disconnected the column from the rack (at the rag joint), and was trying to get the other end of the rag joint off of the lower column (good luck!) when I realized the universal didn't want to move.

I tried to remove the universal from the upper column at the firewall, but the darn thing is buried so deep, there was no way to get a hammer anywhere near it (and you'd really have to hit it from behind the firewall to move it anyway), so I crawled underneath and just started alternately spraying it with penetrating oil and rocking it. One axis loosened up right away, the other axis loosened to a reasonable degree after a considerable amount of work.

It started raining before I could hook it back up and check it out, but I know that was it because it was much tighter than it should have been, and because I could feel the difference in tightness of the two different axes of the U-joint through the steering wheel as I rolled it around while driving earlier today.

So, thanks again, and keep this in mind for cars that have been sitting around and have tight steering.

- Eric

edit: all back together, works great!

[marrow]

Thanks this story just saved me a lot of aggro at a mechanics. My car was laid up for three months while I moved to a new country and I just returned from my second trip back and hauled it to my new home on a flatbed behind a u-haul truck. I experienced the same problems and now it is resolved. Thanks so much.

[Eric]

Glad I could help someone.

It was such a PIA that I felt like I went through enough aggravation and did enough work for a whole buck of people .

By the way: The universal still works great a year and a half later!

- Eric