Hi,
Perhaps someone here has some insight they can share.
Background: '77 Spirtfire w/41K original miles
_new_ last weekend tires -- balancing and alignment too.
_tight_ front suspention, steering column, rack mounts appear
to be OK (to noticable play when I tug on the rack)
recently (<200 mi ago) relubed suspension, rack
Problem: At >50MPH the entire steering column wants to vibrate.
(thats the whole column, not the wheel)
This occurs as a left to right motion with little up/down
movement. The wheel itself is steady all of the time with
respect to the column. (i.e. I'm not seeing the results of
a screwed up alignment) Oh, this varies with the road condition.
On newly paved roads its not a problem, on your normal highway
(for sunny CA, not the SE express way in Boston) its much more
severe.
I've already checked the suspension, rack and mounts for play and haven't
found any. I can _slightly_ move the column left-right if I grab the
wheel with both hands and pull hard, but the mounting points seem to
be solid/tight/etc.
I can think of two possibilities
1) the column mounts are OK, but what the column bolts too is a rather
odd L shaped braket (from my diagrams it looks this way) with each
end of the L bolts to the column and the bend bolts somewhere up
behind the dash to hold everything together. Perhaps something has
gone amiss with the mounting up behind the dash??
more likely possibility:
2) though my rack bushings appear to be solid to my tugging on them they're
really marginal and that rebushing would eliminate this problem.
and the final possibility that comes to mind
3) they all do this. its part of the character -- like leaking oil to
protect itself from rust.
Thougts?
--Mike
|