Steering Now Heavy

[PeeVee]

Several months ago I rebuilt the leaking steering rack on my '95 C2.  With a new seal kit and, by carefully following instructions from the 'net, I now have stiff steering - both ways.  The steering is not loose enough to self-centre.  When I had the rack on the bench the rack moved smoothly with the new seals.  Although everything was torqued correctly, I did however mismatch the pinion teeth slightly from original setting - maybe one tooth out.  The pinion was a bit tight going in and, rather than wrestle to re-position it, I felt it wasn't critical.   (Once assembled I did notice the pinion was harder to twist that before.) I only had to change the steering column connection to compensate.  The steering works perfectly and doesn't hang up anywhere - just a bit too tight. 

I thought that after a few hundred miles things might loosen up.  But there's no difference.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Peter 

 

[JFP in PA]

Several months ago I rebuilt the leaking steering rack on my '95 C2.  With a new seal kit and, by carefully following instructions from the 'net, I now have stiff steering - both ways.  The steering is not loose enough to self-centre.  When I had the rack on the bench the rack moved smoothly with the new seals.  Although everything was torqued correctly, I did however mismatch the pinion teeth slightly from original setting - maybe one tooth out.  The pinion was a bit tight going in and, rather than wrestle to re-position it, I felt it wasn't critical.   (Once assembled I did notice the pinion was harder to twist that before.) I only had to change the steering column connection to compensate.  The steering works perfectly and doesn't hang up anywhere - just a bit too tight. 

I thought that after a few hundred miles things might loosen up.  But there's no difference.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Peter 

 

Welcome to RennTech :welcome:

 

Something is not right in the reassembly; the rack should not behave as you describe it.  It should feel slightly tighter than when you started, but not so tight it does not try to self center coming off a corner.

[PeeVee]

Many thanks for the response JFP.  Yes, something must have gone wrong with the re-assembly. I was pre-occupied with not having the exact tooth meshing but I'm now inclined to think something is binding with the input shaft seals.  Anyway, it'll have to be taken out and checked over.  

Thanks again

Peter 

[PeeVee]

Problem fixed!  The binding was caused by the pinion shaft seals.  I found it's important to liberally coat each seal component DURING assembly with ATF - i.e. shaft, O rings and then blue seals.  I clearly didn't.  Once assembled there's no way ATF can get behind these seals for them to move smoothly so the rack will never loosen up.

As an interim measure I had tried Pentosin CHF 11S to hopefully loosen things up.  I then noticed some slight weeping on the rack so it's too thin.  With this latest repair I've now gone back to Dexron 3.   

Peter