turning radius

[7tredmach]

I have a 70 Mach that I am restoring, my question has to do with the steering. All steering parts are new or rebuilt except for the steering box. There is some free play in the steering, I'm hoping a adjustment to the steering box will help. The other problem is the cars turning radius, it will turn about 30% sharper to the right than the left. What would cause this?
Thanks

 

[69gmachine]

Assuming you have power steering, the centerlink is not centered. One of the tie rod assemblies are adjusted longer than the other to compensate. Any decent alignment shop should be able to fix it. You can rough it in by splitting the difference of the two tie rod assemblies and adjusting the centerlink until both tires are pointing straight ahead. That will be good enough to make it to a shop to do it with precision. If you have manual steering, the only thing I can think of that would cause that would be a bent steering arm on the steering box.

 

[phast69]

As for the radius...69 summed it up.

As for the play....even getting a new box you will still have play. The boxes were designed to work that way. I wasted a good chunk of change on a Flaming River box and didn't see hardly any improvement. 6 months later I went w/ a TCP rack and pinion and it's made a world of difference. Just a tad bit of play but hardly noticeable.

 

[7tredmach]

Yes, it is a power steering car. I will check the measurements of the tie rods to see how far they are off. I had the aligment done by the best shop in the area, I would have thought they would have caught the problem, and fixed it. What's involved in changing over to the TCP rack and pinion, and what would it cost?
Thanks for the info.

 

[twuxtop]

???

Assuming you have power steering, the centerlink is not centered. One of the tie rod assemblies are adjusted longer than the other to compensate. Any decent alignment shop should be able to fix it. You can rough it in by splitting the difference of the two tie rod assemblies and adjusting the centerlink until both tires are pointing straight ahead. That will be good enough to make it to a shop to do it with precision. If you have manual steering, the only thing I can think of that would cause that would be a bent steering arm on the steering box.

hmmm, i was told to center the tie rod holes on the centerlink to the frame, and i have power...
am i doing it wrong?
how to know where the pitman should be pointing as well?
i know how to fix bumpsteer, and was told to center the centerlink...
any help on this? thanks

 

[DailyDriver_68]

I was having a similar problem with my turning radius a few years ago after replacing my steering box. It turned out that I didn't have my steering box centered when I attached the pitman arm. The steering box would hit it's internal stop in one direction before the the steering system could reach it's full travel, thus reducing the turning radius in one direction. It caused some other weird things driving at highway speeds as well. To check this, you probably need to pull the pitman arm. Won't affect your alignment.

 

[twuxtop]

^

anyone else care to chime in about the centering of the centerlink when the pitman has not bee removed?