Steering

E

EdB

Junior Member
New sector, worm and bushing machined & installed. Steering wheel lash adjusted. It is real difficult to steer. Any Advice?

Have tinkered with the toe in and it still 'wanders' some. Is that the nature of the beast, or can this be overcome?

Had the front wheels balanced; they took lots of weights. There is some 'bounce' of the front end that levels of about 30 MPH. He told me that the wheels themselves are out of true and round. Is that a common problem?

Thank you.
 
7 tooth or 2 tooth ?? Adjustment makes a huge difference especially with the 4 adjustments on the 2 tooth box.. How much steering wheel free-play??
 
If you are having that much trouble with a bent wheel I would just find another one to replace it would. You should have no wandering or bounce. Was the steering tight before you rebuilt the box?? Disconnect the pitman arm from the steering rod and check your box adjustments and for any binding.
 
Sorry, it is a 2 toooth sector.
steering wheel free play is anout an inch or so.
before the rebuild there was a lot of shimmy ..the bushing was welll worn, the gears pitted somewhat.
 
"It is real difficult to steer. Any Advice?"

You mean dart? Jack her up and check everything for looseness. And you might want to try a short arm pitman arm. Makes the turning radius greater but slows down the driver's input. To counter the above statement that adjusting screw atop the box might be too tight. That could be looser. Can you jack her up and manually turn the wheel lock to lock without going to the steering whee? Many 'A's won't do that. Just a thought.

Somewhere I have a post with picture to make a tow in adjusting tool. I used it after R&Ring my spindle bolts [king pins].

Put her up on four jack stands and try 'front to back and back to front', see if the truer wheels make a difference. Like a bicycle try spinning them against a set pointer on the floor. Put the best wheel up front. A lot of weight? Break the tire down and rotate the tire 180 degrees on the wheel. Re inflate and try the balance again. A lot of weight? Are they bubble balanced?

skip.
 
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Try this
 

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I had areal problem with wheel hop. Change tires, checked all of the specs and balanced the wheels and drums as a single unit. Turned out that there was a flat spot on both front 16" wire wheels. Woody's Wheel Works in Denver made them right. A pleasure to drive again.
 
As indicated by just about everyone there are lots of things that affect steering. Gary WA made a point of checking the radius ball on the wishbone which is extremelt important for steering stability. Mine was very worn and I finally and reluctantly resorted to the rubber ball setup which virtually eliminated a very slight shimmy at 50 mph. Previously I tried the original setup with shim washers, but couldn't get rid of the slight shimmy.

IMO you should have about 1/2" to 1" of steering play and no more.

While i was troubleshooting my slight shimmy I measured the axial and radial runout on both the rims and the tires mounted on the rims using a dial indicator. All were less than 1/8" which I believe is the upper limit. However, one tire/rim combo was very close to 1/8" runout and, just for the hell of it, I put it on the front to see if it would make any difference. No appreciable difference. The long and short of it is that if your runouts are less than 1/8" the problem is probably somewhere else.

Also, don't resort to the hydraulic cylinder stabilizer that goes from the tie rod to the axle. It will bend your tie rod over time and ruin your toe in. That happened to me. It also makes the car much harder to steer.

Good luck

Dick
 
WOW, if this guy's head is not spinning after readling all of this, he needs to thank his lucky stars!! :D


If you don't mind, let's start back over!! "Difficult to steer" as I perceive it truthfully has little, --to NOTHING to do with out-of-round wheels nor toe-in. Something I have noticed is sector shaft bushings that are excessively worn (--or reamed too much) do not steer well. No offense, but did his machine shop actually ream them, hone them, or were they fitted using a piece of sandpaper on a finger? I hear the reamers some Model A Dealers are selling are actually too large and take out too much material. I actually have the sector bushings honed by James Rogers (Dreamwerks) on his wrist pin hone to get a great fit and eliminate 600wt oil leakage at the sector shaft.

Next, did he install new upper & lower races and bearings? If not, what if the 2-tooth box is a Ford box and the worm is for a Gemmer? For the last year or two, almost every new sector & worm that we have installed has had to be "fitted" to get a proper mesh. Also, the lube you install is fairly critical to smooth operation. What Ed is describing about the lash being adjusted yet it wanders kinda describes exactly what we have experienced in the things above.
 
After you adjusted the steering and before you replaced it into the car was it easy to turn the wheel from one extreme to the other. What I am really asking is did you check it out after you adjusted it and before you installed it? If you didn't disconnect the drag ink and turn it from one extreme to the other.

Charlie Stephens
 
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