Allcoupedup

I finally took the '65 to get aligned and everything is nice and straignt BUT my steering wheel.

In a previous post I learned about the various markings on the wheel, the hub, the shaft, and the steering box. Bubba had them all messed up. When I set all of those marks at 12:00, my wheels were not pointing forward. As a matter of fact my steering wheel was 180 degrees out with the wheels pointed straight ahead.


hub/shaft


Wheel to hub


steering box at 12:00 with the sheel straight ahead and shaft/hub/steering wheel mark at 12:00



So the guy aligning my car has beeing doing alignments since 1975 and is well known in the area for aligning Corvettes. He did the rear caster and toe pretty quickly, front camber was no problem but when he got to the front toe he said "something isn't right"

Unfortunately it was saturday and he had already kept the shop open 2 hours past closing and he didn't have time to solve the mystery.

He told me that he didn't see a way for me to set get the wheels straight ahead and be on what I thought was the steering box high point. Given the guidance from this forum, I am confident I have the wheel to the box aligned correctly (plus I can feel the high spot as Gary Ramadei just rebuilt it).

The alignment guy showed me the tie rod tubes and showed me bubba's work. He also told me that someone had aligned the wheels straight ahead and that my idler arm and pitman arm should be straight ahead with the wheels straight ahead --- they are not.

I ended up going home with the steering wheel upside down and a loose wheel as I am 180 degrees off the steering wheel high point.


What is going on? Do I have a parts mismatch? Here are some more pictures

relay rod

right wheel tie rods/tube - notice the ends are almost all the way in the tube


left wheel tire rods/tube - notice the ends are almost all the way out of the tube




Do I have something going on here or was the alignment guy not seeing the answer?

THanks,
Brian

62Jeff

The steering wheel hub is indexed to the shaft.

Remember though the steernig wheel mounts to the hub in 1 of 6 positions. I think what you are saying is that when the hub and shaft aligned, the wheels are OK but the steering wheel is not. So remove the 6 Phillips countersunk screws that hold the wheel to the hub, rotate the steering wheel until it is aligned the way you want it, and re-attach to the hub.

I had that exact problem with my 65. When I installed my hub with the index mark at the 12 o'clock position so that my cancelling cam would work, the steering wheel was upside down.

Allcoupedup

Jeff,
I'd do as you did and be done with it but I would not be on the high point of the steering box. A PO (previous owner) had the wheel indexed differently to the hub and they probably did the same thing as you.

I'm just browsing the paragon catalog and see that I have the power steering relay rod link but I don't have power steering. Could this be part of the issue?

Brian

62Jeff

Oh, I misread one of your photos then. I thought the steering box was not on the high point, when your steering wheel was straight (and thus the hub out of alignment).

Hmmm, I'm afraid I can't offer an opinion on that, but I would imagine if the power steering relay rod link was not the same length as a manual steering relay rod link, then that couldn't be good. Someone with more data than I, I'm sure will chime in.

Allcoupedup

looks like there are two pitman arms, two relay rods, and two idler arms


I have a mismatch -
my pitman arm is 3829451 which is for NO power steering - need to find out which relay rod and idler arm I have


I take back my comment about my car having a power steering relay rod - I can find very little info about non PS relay rods so I'm not sure what I have.

Thanks,
Brian

bmcnitt

I'm not much of a mechanic so take this for what its worth but it sounds like you could have your pitman arm oriented wrong. I just took off my entire steering linkage, box, steering shaft, and did the borgeson box upgrade and I have been thinking a lot about how to get everything back on right which I apparently did. How can your pitman arm not be pointed forward when your wheels are straight? Are you sure you put it back on your rebuilt box right? It only goes on 4 ways because of the keys but if you have it rotated 90 degrees out of its proper spot IMHO you would have some of these severe issues you are having. Again, I dont know much so I hope some knowledgable guys will give you some ideas but thats mine.

ragtopman

If I may, I am going to in this thread for I am at a point of needing my steering squared away also.

And I am going to start by asking, what is this 'high point' of the steering box some of you speak of??

Something in my steering just doesn't feel right that and I need to get my wheel pointed in the right direction.

The index marks on both the hub and shaft are not there and I have centered the cancelling cam the best I can get, the turn signals seem to return by themselves ok.

SupremeDeluxe

Brian,

Did Jim Redden do the alignment? Did Gary R put the pittman arm on the box? There are two different pittman arms as you stated, but I don't know if the wrong arm for the application could cause the problems you are having. I am also not sure if the relay rod could be responsible. I think your assembly from wheel to box is indexed correctly. Any chance the tie rod sleeves or ends are wrong for the application?

I also note the two bolts mounting the front part of the LCA cross shaft to the frame seem strange. On my 67 (and if I recall on the 66 as well) there are two bolts which run up into a shared, threaded metal plate that rests on the upper side of the frame. On yours, there appears to be two bolts coming down from the top side with nuts on the bottom. This has nothing to do with the alignment problem, but I see the bolts don't extend fully through the nuts and I'd correct that in the interest of safety.

Nick

JohnZ

You have everything properly indexed/centered all the way down to the relay rod (which is correct), but the photos show the idler arm too far to the right, and the right tie rod sleeve is way short, and the left tie rod sleeve is way long, due to an earlier alignment trying to compensate for the steering wheel/hub/shaft/gear not being properly centered.

If you turn both tie rod sleeves in the same direction (with the wheels remaining straight ahead), it will move the relay rod back to the left, which will orient the steering wheel back where it belongs (center spoke at 6 o'clock), with the idler arm pointing straight fore-and-aft where it belongs. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes, and the whole system will be properly centered.

Allcoupedup

Nick,

Yes Jim did the work and Gary put the Pitman arm back on (I think it is keyed anyway). I'm sure Jim would have figured it out but it was 3 o'clock and he had another customer show up for an appointment (the shop "closed" at 1:00) so he was out of time.


John,

I'm glad this looks like something easy to fix. Is it as simple as loosening the pinch bolts on the tubes and rotating the tubes equal amounts until the car tracks straight with the wheel centered?


Thanks,
brian

JohnZ

Yup, it's as simple as that.

bub

Are the outer tie rod ends both RH thread (when looking at end view from under car looking outwards)?

In other words, if using a pipe wrench behind the tie rods, and rotating the wrench handle horizontal to down to the ground, the steering wheel will rotate CCW?

Trying to recenter wheel, and having trouble seeing and determining thread hand...

Pilot Dan

All too common, but easily corrected. I did my 59 myself, with a Toe-in guage in my garage in about 20 minutes. It makes a HUGE difference how much better the car drives to have the wheel centered and on the high spot with proper alignment. I'd pop a tie rod end loose on EACH side, get everything on the high spots and wheels pointing straight ahead, and fix the spacing roughly the same on both sides since it is so far off BEFORE you try to set the toe. You can get it real close on your own with a couple of straight edges and a measuring tape and then take it back to the alignment shop for a final dial in. Pilot Dan