I was driving my El Camino a bit spiritedly through a long sweeper with bumpy (but not rough) pavement. I don't remember any harsh impacts but it was quite a hard turn. Older GM A-body, so it's double-wishbone with a steering gearbox and pitman arm setup. Looks like the picture below.
Immediately after the curve, my steering wheel is now off by a good 30 degrees degrees. It still tracks straight, no pulling. I did a rough check of toe with a tape measure, inspected for broken/bent things, checked the rag joint from steering shaft to gearbox, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. It's possible I didn't inspect close enough, but I would think a bent tie rod or something would affect how it drives.
What could it be? Simply knocked out of alignment? Steering wheel slipped on shaft? Something to do with the gearbox? Taking it to an alignment shop no matter what.
iceracer wrote:
Rear axle moved.
That's my first thought too. Anything else would have showed up when the front toe was checked, especially since it still drives straight. Probably dog tracking down the road though.
30 degrees steering wheel offset is too much for a rear axle offset that doesn't look drastically out of place.
I would suspect a slippage in the steering shaft. Maybe at a point where there is some telescoping element that had a set screw or similar.
stafford1500 wrote:
30 degrees steering wheel offset is too much for a rear axle offset that doesn't look drastically out of place.
I would suspect a slippage in the steering shaft. Maybe at a point where there is some telescoping element that had a set screw or similar.
This. That's scary.
You may have a part in your steering column where an outer shaft is clamped onto a splined inner shaft. If the bolt that holds that clamping force has loosened, those splines could slip.
Edit: Also check where the pitman arm bolts on to the output of the steering gearbox. It might have a similar clamp-onto-splines arrangement.
Well that's goofy. And nothing feels noticeably loose, or at least not any more so than would be expected in an old El Camino? If it doesn't pull or otherwise drive differently, it has to be something between the pitman arm and the steering wheel. Anything else would cause a pull or bump steer.
Only things I can think of would be a slipped steering shaft collapsible joint, slipped steering shaft splines, or something to do with the rag joint that you checked. The collapsible joint is pretty high on the list just because it's a tube inside another tube with rubber bonded between them. Put vise grips, channel locks, or an appropriate wrench on each end of the steering shaft and see if the middle section slips.
Hadn't thought of that. Yes there is a bolt somewhere that clamps onto a spline. Yikes I hope that's not it and that it's just a mysterious alignment problem! A common aftermarket part is a double u-joint shaft to replace the old rag joint setup.
Also keep in mind, 30 degrees on this steering box is not much wheel movement thanks to its classic American car boaty-steering ratio of 17.5:1
I had similar symptoms during a rally where the ball joint fell out of my front lower control arm.
Check the rag joint to shaft pinch bolt. They were not keyed in the 67-72 a body. Also, the rag joint itself. Ive had bad ones do this.
Tilt column or not?
In reply to maschinenbau:
Is it the factory wheel?
I believe Matt Farah had a similar issue with his mustang and eventually traced it back to a faulty hub adapter.
The only time I had a similar issue was on a square body Chevy when it ripped the frame at the steering box. It was pretty obvious something was very wrong in that case however.
Has the steering box moved on the frame ?
In the offroad world, we keep the rag joints as a failsafe point in the steering system. If the rag joint lets go, you'll get about 90 degrees of freeplay in your steering wheel, but you'll still have some steering control. If a U-joint breaks, you have no steering control at all.
I doubt the spline slipped. Easy to check, just turn to lock and keep cranking. If it slipped under normal use, it will slip there. Something shifted. Gearbox shifted, rear toe went off, shims fell out of the upper arm, etc. Figure out which spec is out of line, and focus in there.
GameboyRMH wrote:
In the offroad world, we keep the rag joints as a failsafe point in the steering system. If the rag joint lets go, you'll get about 90 degrees of freeplay in your steering wheel, but you'll still have some steering control. If a U-joint breaks, you have no steering control at all.
You may have just convinced me to keep the rag joint in my pickup.
I agree that something shifted in the alignment. Let us know what's up once you take it to the shop.
Not the issue with the OP car, but in Lemons we had this happen when some camber bolts came loose after many hard drops into the carousel on the Shenandoah circuit. Anything that allows some adjustment in the steering or suspension system is what I'd check (duh).
Camber and caster on that car are set with shims - you'd have some serious thunking and banging if you lost a shim (or the whole stack of them). Steering box could have shifted on the frame; I hadn't thought of that one.
My Caprice had a decent rag joint setup, but I installed the Jeep shaft anyway when I had the engine out last time. I get the fail safe thing with the rag joint, but holy cow did that u-joint shaft tighten the car up.
ultraclyde wrote:
GameboyRMH wrote:
In the offroad world, we keep the rag joints as a failsafe point in the steering system. If the rag joint lets go, you'll get about 90 degrees of freeplay in your steering wheel, but you'll still have some steering control. If a U-joint breaks, you have no steering control at all.
You may have just convinced me to keep the rag joint in my pickup.
I agree that something shifted in the alignment. Let us know what's up once you take it to the shop.
Proper u joints are WAY stronger than rag joints. The rag joint NEEDS a failsafe because it is simple and common for them to fail.
Back on topic... The intermediate steering shaft out of a jeep grand Cherokee can be used to replace the rag joint on any G body vehicle. Between that and a steering box out of a WS6 or similar high performance GM vehicle, the steering is WAYYYYY better.
In reply to wvumtnbkr:
As a note on those ZJ steering shafts... They're kinda not great IMO. The vibration damper adds some mushiness, especially as the shaft ages. And the slip joint is somewhat prone to slop. I finally got sick of the stock one in my Jeep and built my own shaft. A double-D collapsible shaft cut to length with the correct Borgeson u-joint stuck to each end made a good replacement. Got rid of the little bit of slop in the slip joint and the mush in the vibration damper (because I don't have one anymore). It did cost more than a stock replacement shaft though.
wvumtnbkr wrote:
Proper u joints are WAY stronger than rag joints. The rag joint NEEDS a failsafe because it is simple and common for them to fail.
True, the U-joint may not be the part in the steering column that breaks, but something will, and that something won't be designed to leave you with some steering control like the rag joint is.
Rag joints are usually used in straight sections of steering shaft specifically as a fail-safe, rather than as a poor man's U-joint.
Realistically, if the steering shaft setup, etc. is well designed and strong enough for the application, by the time you manage to snap something that would leave you with no steering, you've probably damaged something badly enough that the vehicle would be un-driveable anyway.
A completely worn out steering box, or one that has lost a ball or two could possibly shift input vs output relationship, but it would have to be either cracked or so worn that you would certainly know it.
Update: I finally bought new tires and took it in to get them mounted, balanced, and aligned. They just called back saying the driver side lower ball joint was busted up and looked about ready to fall out 
Guess that was a harder hit than I thought. So hopefully that solves that mystery. I just rebuilt that whole front end a couple years ago too.
