Over the last few days, I removed my leaking 605 power steering gearbox and replaced it with an 800 gearbox (spec'd for an '87 Monte Carlo SS). My pitman arm didn't swap over, of course, so I installed one from Allstar Performance at the same time. For now, I'm still using my stock steering shaft. All other steering components were retained in this operation; I literally removed the one steering gearbox (with attached pitman arm) and installed the new box (with attached pitman arm) in its place.
Here's where it gets strange: now my steering wheel is off by about 60 degrees. It had been perfectly straight--in fact, I just had the car aligned one week before doing this gearbox swap. I went for a short, slow drive around my neighborhood and there doesn't seem to be any outrageous tire scrubbing; the tires look nice and parallel, and the car seems to drive straight so long as I leave the wheel cocked as described.
Yesterday I explained this to a friend who has years of experience as an alignment/suspension tech. He gave me an assignment: when I'm going dead straight, see how far the steering wheel turns in each direction. Does it turn the same amount in both directions? I told him I'd try it and report back.
This afternoon I performed my test in a nearby parking lot. When I turned left, the steering wheel rotated a full turn and a half (1.5 turns). When I straightened out and tried turning right, the wheel did not quite turn one and a quarter rotations (say about 1.20 turns). I've heard this gearbox is supposed to turn 2.7 turns lock to lock, so this math made sense to me just from a numbers perspective.
From behind the wheel, I felt like the car was actually turning tighter left than right... so, in a flash of wisdom, I decided to stop and get out at each steering extreme just to take a look at what was happening. Sure enough, the tires would turn more sharply to the left than to the right. Alarmingly, while cranked to the left I noticed the right wheel's rubber brake line was drawn tight enough to pluck it like a guitar string. When cranked to the right, there was still significant slack in the left wheel's brake line. Hmm.
And thus the $64,000 question: why does the new gearbox steer more to the left than the right? And what can/should I do to correct the situation? The pitman arm is keyed to the gearbox in such a way that I might be able to rotate it 90 degrees, but that would be way too much of an adjustment. (I did verify that when the car is pointed straight, the new pitman arm is parallel to the 'slave' arm on the other end of the drag link.) Could there be an issue with how the steering shaft went on to the gearbox? I swear it was keyed; I thought it could only go on in one way, but am I wrong? Do I need to make a monster adjustment to my tie rod ends to correct for this?
Anybody have any ideas?
Here's where it gets strange: now my steering wheel is off by about 60 degrees. It had been perfectly straight--in fact, I just had the car aligned one week before doing this gearbox swap. I went for a short, slow drive around my neighborhood and there doesn't seem to be any outrageous tire scrubbing; the tires look nice and parallel, and the car seems to drive straight so long as I leave the wheel cocked as described.
Yesterday I explained this to a friend who has years of experience as an alignment/suspension tech. He gave me an assignment: when I'm going dead straight, see how far the steering wheel turns in each direction. Does it turn the same amount in both directions? I told him I'd try it and report back.
This afternoon I performed my test in a nearby parking lot. When I turned left, the steering wheel rotated a full turn and a half (1.5 turns). When I straightened out and tried turning right, the wheel did not quite turn one and a quarter rotations (say about 1.20 turns). I've heard this gearbox is supposed to turn 2.7 turns lock to lock, so this math made sense to me just from a numbers perspective.
From behind the wheel, I felt like the car was actually turning tighter left than right... so, in a flash of wisdom, I decided to stop and get out at each steering extreme just to take a look at what was happening. Sure enough, the tires would turn more sharply to the left than to the right. Alarmingly, while cranked to the left I noticed the right wheel's rubber brake line was drawn tight enough to pluck it like a guitar string. When cranked to the right, there was still significant slack in the left wheel's brake line. Hmm.
And thus the $64,000 question: why does the new gearbox steer more to the left than the right? And what can/should I do to correct the situation? The pitman arm is keyed to the gearbox in such a way that I might be able to rotate it 90 degrees, but that would be way too much of an adjustment. (I did verify that when the car is pointed straight, the new pitman arm is parallel to the 'slave' arm on the other end of the drag link.) Could there be an issue with how the steering shaft went on to the gearbox? I swear it was keyed; I thought it could only go on in one way, but am I wrong? Do I need to make a monster adjustment to my tie rod ends to correct for this?
Anybody have any ideas?