Really tight steering

Russell Reay

Russell Reay

Well-known member
My 1930 huckster is nearly ready for a road test. I disassembled the entire front suspension and steering, installed new king pins, bushings, tie rod ends, shackles, new USA spring, new sector housing, non-leak end plate, assembly per red book, and correct 600w lube. On the lift with pitman arm disconnected the steering box is smooth and easy, and when I move the wheels back and forth by hand, the motion is smooth but firm/ snug. When driving it around the yard, the steering is very tight--too tight. Steering wheel play is about 1-1 1/2". I am thinking that I just need a few turns around the neighborhood to get all the grease properly distributed, and it will settle in and be fine. Any contrary opinions and recommendations?
 

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With the wheels on the ground,try to rotate the kingpin thrust bearings.You should not be able to move them by hand or with a light twist with water pump pliers.
 
No, I don't think it will settle in with a couple of trips around the block.

What Keith is suggesting is that, if you can turn the king pin bearings by hand with the car on the ground, the bearings are not properly pre-loaded and the axle and spindle are taking the brunt of the load. If this is the case, your king pin kit should have come with several .010" shims. You'll need to add more of these under the bearings to shift the load. This is very much a trial and error process. You'll need to disassemble the king pin on each side, add a shim, install the lock pin in the axle firmly, and check the drag on the bearing. You need to do this as many times as necessary until you have a good amount of drag on each bearing.

I this is not the case, and your king pin bearings are properly pre-loaded, then check that the tie rod and drag link ends are not too tightly adjusted. Another thing to look at would be your toe-in adjustment. A car that is severely toed in or out will steer very hard.
 
The thrust bearings will turn when I grip firmly with pliers. They definitely are not loose. I did a toe-in adjustment a while back, and feel it is close enough until a driving experience suggests otherwise. I did all new nylon tie rod and drag link end caps, but probably tightened them too much--if a little is good, more is better. Will check these and report back
 
Make sure you grease those nylon bits when assembling them, I had the steering nearly seize up on my 33 while away , turned to to be dry nylon cups ,even though I had greased them via the grease nipple on the joint.
Lawrie
 
The steering wheel play should be more like 1/4 inch when steering straight ahead. Make sure you steering box is adjusted correctly. Check to see that the pitman arm is tight on the output shaft of the steering box. On my car I had to use a long breaker bar on the nut before it was thigh enough that there was no relative movement.
 
It sounds like you need to shim your thrust bearings on the spindles the weight of the car is making it hard to steer until you get the proper number of shims on those bearings.
 
If everything moves around easily with the car on the lift,but not on the ground,it all does point back to the thrust bearings not properly shimmed.Having the steering balls too tight will make it steer hard,but that would be the same with the car on the lift and the wheels on the ground.If not shimmed properly the bottom kingpin boss on the spindle will ride on the axle,carrying the weight instead of the bearing.It's a bit of a tedious process,but it has to be done.You can disassemble and reassemble to check and test withoug installing the backing plates until you get it right.
 
Still working on this. I disassembled the drivers side spindle and found one shim, so I added another and reassembled. The red book says to tighten tie rod ends so spring is 25% compressed. Since the spring is not visible, how can you tell? I tighten the plug until I can insert the cotter pin. Comments ?
 
To get 25% compression, measure the length of the spring and multiply it by 25% (1/4 of the length). Then put the screw in until it just touches the spring. Then tighten the screw until it goes in the 25% you calculated in step 1.

For example, if you measured the spring to be 1.14 inches, 1/4 of that would be 0.29 inch. After the screw contacts the spring you would screw it in an additional 0.29 inch. It is not necessary to carry out the math more that 2 places and the result is approximate. You might be able to tighten the screw 0.25 inch before the cotter key can be inserted. That would be fine.

Most people tighten the screw until they can insert the cotter key.
 
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Make certain the tie rod is not laying on the drag link as you turn the wheels???

You can check the shims with a gap gauge. .005 thousandths max on jack stands. You can also check for vertical play by placing a crow bar under a front tire and lifting up as I recall.
 
Assemble the spindle onto the axle,WITHOUT the felt washer in the lower part,and tighten the lock bolt.You don't need the backing plates for this.With the axle sitting on jack stands,jack under the spindle itself.If the lower boss on the spindle contacts the bottom of the axle,it ain't right.Just throwing shims at it without determining just how many you need is just shooting in the dark.It might be a little tedious,but if you do it without the felt washer in place you won't get any false signals,or feedback in your hands when checking it.Sometimes I can do it in just 2 or 3 tries.
 
Update and good news. With backing plates off and felt washer on the bottom removed and two shims in, I jacked up the spindles and with a magnifying glass could detect no movement. Declare victory and proceed. Readjusted steering box with pitman arm removed. Disassembled drag link from pitman arm and discovered that the tenon of the nylon plug would not slide into the spring as the threaded plug is screwed in. Using a vise I pressed the two parts together--they mated easily. Reassembled, and everything feels better. Steering is still a little tighter than I think it is supposed to be, but better. Took it on its official maiden voyage 4 miles to fill the gas tank. Steering wanders on occasion, but no wobbles. Need to get used to cancelling turn signals, and smoothing out the shifts---I'm used to shifting Toyota and ZF-5 5 speeds w/o the clutch, so this little 3 sp will take some getting used to.
 
With everything like you have it,look at the joint between the bottom of the axle and the top of the bottom boss of the spindle.There needs to be a gap there.Then you have to measure the gap,and then the thickness of the cup washer for the felt.It may be,(and should be) large enough to guestimate by eye,The end game is to prevent the spindle from contacting the axle bottom with the wheels on the ground.You are checking that by jacking a little under the spindle.The felt won't offer any resistance to the weight of the car sitting on it.
 
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