Steering Rack/Column Woes
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 2:03 pm
My question is regarding some play in my steering wheel. When I first picked up the car, there was similar play (maybe an inch or two, pretty unnerving during driving) that I diagnosed as the drag link (ball joint that connects to the pitman arm at the steering box. I replaced the drag link and the play in the steering was seemingly gone. Since then, I've driven the car maybe 5 times for 10 minutes at a time. There is, now, play in the wheel, and looking down at the steering box, moving the wheel (at least the amount that there is slop) isn't moving the pitman arm much. I'm confident it isn't drag link, idler arm, tie-rods, and that the play is almost for sure in either the steering box itself or the pitman arm. NOTE this is while the motor is turned OFF. So my long-winded question is: could the steering box get noticeably looser after maybe 50 minutes of driving? The fact that it was (at least to my recollection, and maybe it was just noticeably better than it was when the drag link was bad) seemingly better has me a little confused.
** A few additional symptoms that may or may not be related:
1) driving at slow speeds, turning the wheel is very difficult, I assumed something with the power steering wasn't working. I checked the fluid (it appears fine). In my garage, I restarted the car and, low and behold, I can hear that the power steering is working seemingly correctly. Maybe the PO overtightened the box because he thought that was the cause of the slop? Looking at the top of the ZF box, it doesn't look like it's been touched.
2) there's a clicking that sounds like it's coming from the locking cylinder inside the car. if you crank the wheel to the right (key not installed), I can get it to make a little noise that sounds like the "key in ignition but door open" buzz. The PO said he replaced the lock cylinder so maybe he did something wrong.
Thanks in advance!
** A few additional symptoms that may or may not be related:
1) driving at slow speeds, turning the wheel is very difficult, I assumed something with the power steering wasn't working. I checked the fluid (it appears fine). In my garage, I restarted the car and, low and behold, I can hear that the power steering is working seemingly correctly. Maybe the PO overtightened the box because he thought that was the cause of the slop? Looking at the top of the ZF box, it doesn't look like it's been touched.
2) there's a clicking that sounds like it's coming from the locking cylinder inside the car. if you crank the wheel to the right (key not installed), I can get it to make a little noise that sounds like the "key in ignition but door open" buzz. The PO said he replaced the lock cylinder so maybe he did something wrong.
Thanks in advance!