Well, I found a few hours to take advantage of the beautiful day and
do some work (outside) on the '6. As people here suspected, the steering
rack _was_ quite loose, maybe 1/3+" total travel. I guess I had a mental
block that said "the rack _can't_ be loose, I put poly bushings in it!"
Unfortunately, I didn't have a good tool for tightening it. I finally
came up with a ok solution: use vise grips to pull the edge of the clamp and
rack together, then tighten. Repeat for other clamp. This definitely
improved the steering feel; however, there's still some movement and severe
shaking above 60mph. Maybe I'll retry it later this week with multiple
vise grips. The problem with the vise grips is that they merely pull the
rack and clamp together; they don't push them out against the brackets. I
may be able to do that by loading the rack with a weight pulling on the
steering wheel, though. In any case, I think I'm on the right track.
I also found about 1/4" toe-out (very rough, using a measuring tape
and the tire treads) and took 1 turn off both tie rods to compensate. I
pumped in a few more degrees advance, tweaked the idle down, and stiffened
the front Spax a bit more.
Net result: The steering has more feel and is far more predictable,
though I still have major high-speed shudder. The stiffer front has made
cornering transitions smoother and rough roads easier to handle. The engine
is starting easier, pulling better off idle, and idling closer to correct,
though still too high. Made for a very enjoyable evening drive.
Of course, driving with the radio off to enjoy the sound of the car,
I heard that thing all '6 owners know and hate: ujoint rattles at high torque.
Since I replaced the outer-rear ujoints maybe a thousand miles ago, and the
inners looked and felt like new (probably replaced by the PO), the ones dieing
are probably the driveshaft joints, which I've never really looked at. They
only make the slightest complaint, and only at close to full torque, so I'll
probably avoid booting it too much until the end of the summer, when I plan
to rebuild the tranny anyways. I _don't_ want the '6 to be down for repairs
for another summer! In fact, I've driven it every day for the last week and a
half. It's too bad that sticky season here in PA will be here soon.
Randell Jesup, '70 TR6
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