While I was under the dash in Miss Molly last evening putting some gasket
sealer around the brake pedal box opening, I turned the steering wheel a
bit. This resulted in the discomfitting vision of seeing the steering
column describing an oval as it turned. I don't know how long she's been
doing this, but I'm pretty sure it can't be right (well, duh, eh?).
I've just rebuilt purt-near the whole front end. The car is up on stands
now, with the suspension hanging, no front wheels, and wooden spacers
between the shock arms and the bump stops. The movement is occuring in
the opening of the tube-like round-shaped fitting thingie (what's it
called?) where the column passes through the bulkhead. The column turns
in an oval at this point, with the longest end of the oval pointing up.
The movement is approximately one inch total.
At rest, with the wheel centered, the column sits square in the fitting.
Now that I know what it's doing, I can feel some resistance as the wheel
turns off of center and begins to move the front end (in other words, as
it reaches the top of the oval, catches slightly, then moves out of the
oval). I have no up-and-down / side-to-side play in the steering wheel
at that end (ie, the inner column doesn't seem to be sloppy in relation
to the outer column at the steering wheel end).
On the column, immediately above where it passes through the opening in
the bulkhead, there's ring/ridge tacked into place. This ring now sits
out about an inch from the opening. I assume that this is meant as a
'stop,' and should be fitted flush into the opening.
Sometime ago -- at least two years -- I realigned the steering column,
and am guessing I either did it wrong, or that I must have not tightened
something up completely.
Can someone give me an idea of what's went wrong here, and how best to
fix it?
Rich
Council Bluffs, Iowa
'74.5 RB MGB "Miss Maggie"
'78 Chevy Half-Ton "Waltzin' Matilda" (LBC Support Vehicle)
'79 Midget "Miss Molly"
richard.arnold@juno.com or rdarnold@neonramp.com
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