Bee Jay

My wife was riding with me and commented on my constant course corrections and how I was fighting the dartiness of the steering. I told her that it was because the C3 Vette had old fashioned recirculating ball steering and how even her mini-van has rack and pinion steering. I was preparing her for the need to buy a $1300 part that improved steering and safety. But last night I finally tried something I had read about for years. I loosened the jam nut on the steering box, and turned the slotted screw in 1/2 turn, and went to bed. I had forgotten what I had done untill I backed out of the garage and started driving to work. What a big difference it made. I hardly could beleive it. Gone is the overboosted, no direct control feeling, and it feels like I'm actually driving the car instead of controlling the car. Instead of jerking the steering wheel to respond to the car darting, I'm steering the car. I may have saved $1300.
Bee Jay

Ganey

Yes, adj. works great. I have done it many times on many cars. Many C2 & C3 probably need it.

jnb5101

rule #1: never overtighten the adjustment screw on the steering box
rule #2: have a loud enough exhaust so you can't hear your wife complain about all the noises and problems these cars have

GTR1999

Hopefully you adjusted it on center. Correctly built and adjusted boxes are very good, others may disagree but it's fact.

Ganey

Yes!

Dantana

I tried this with mine earlier in the summer and saw no appreciable change to the dartiness. It did tighten up a little but now the car tends to pull on me. I went back to "0" adjustment (where I started) and it didn't really return to the old feel, just stayed the same as if I left the screw tightened. I wonder if my steering box is just shot? Is there a quick check I can perform to determine this? - - maybe I have just described it...

nutsy

my steering wheel has a couple inches of play. is this normal? will this take it out and how do you do this? thanks.

7T1vette

Dantana....
Your problem is not with the steering box {apparently}. Check the rag-joint on the steering shaft for wear/slop. Replace or repair if required. If that's not the problem, check your idler arm and steering linkages....one or more of them have some bad joints.

P.S. If your front wheels are toed OUT, that can cause the same 'darting' problem.

terry82

jack up the front wheels have a friend move the steering wheel back and forth ,look at all the joints for movement .the rag joint you can check with out jacking it up .

'75

Mine has had a little more play than I like , so I tightened it down 1/4 turn just now. I also checked the lube in there by removing one of the 3/8 bolts near the adjusting jam nut. The grease in there wasn't hard so i added about 4 oz of gear oil. I'll check it out next time a I go for a spin to see if the free play is reduced enough and the steering wheel still moves freely.

MotorHead

No one has mentioned the proper procedure for tightening this nut, I know there is one but I don't know it off hand, anyone ?

Bee Jay

I just drove home and I was amazed again at the difference. I took it up to 95 and the car is steady and doesn't change directions until I give it a good turn. The car is not all over the place anymore. I worked very hard this summer getting the front and rear aligned and was sure that I needed to make major suspension and steering changes to get it to track steady. Thats two major imporvements to my car that cost almost nothing this summer. The x-pipe and tightening this screw 1/2 turn. I've owned the car since new and I've never touched this in 30 years. So, I guess it was time.
Bee Jay

Rebelrob

Lets see a picture of this screw and where is the rag joint located? Any guidelines of where it should actually be as far as adjustment as mentioned above would also be helpful.
Thx,

08vycpe

There is a proper sequence for adjusting the steering box. Lars and Jim Shea have an excellent paper on this. You must first adjust the worm shaft bearing lash first before you adjust the pitman shaft lash adjuster (that's the one where you loosen the jam nut and turn the screw with a screwdriver). Use the "poor man's way" to make things easy.

Here is the link to the steering adjustment papers by Jim Shea.

http://jimshea.corvettefaq.com/?page_id=4

I rebuilt my column, replaced the rag joint, aligned the steering system (wheels, steering gear, rag joint, steering wheel) in the spring. The other thing I did was to lubricate the gear. Remove the lower bolt of the 3 bolts on top and stick a wire down the hole to see how much lube you have and if it's hardened over the years. Only use the GM steering gear lube and NOT chassis lube.

Here is a pic of the lube with the correct part number. I used a big siringe buy a grease gun works as well.

rave3c0

Thanks for the link, i was having similar problems as well. There is definitely a lot of good info from Jim Shea. I have read through a good deal of the papers already and have already learned so much, but which one covers adjusting the worm shaft bearing lash and pitman shaft lash?

spedaleden

I bought a flamming river box when I retored my car and it was worse than my factory box. Called them and told me how to adjust the box and it was night and day. I was thinking of rack & pinion but not any more. I love the steering as I said in another post a properly set up factory steering system is as good or better than rack & pinion.

Enjoy the ride

08vycpe

This one.

http://jimshea.corvettefaq.com/wp-co...erev14no08.doc

rave3c0

gigidy! thanks!

mrvette

TIRES, wheels are more important than any other factor except overall condition of the suspension, in how the car handles....

when you get good modern lo profile enough rubber on there, that control valve rears it's fugly head and you will notice the wandering.....my car is only 17x9.5 vette wheels all around, and I noticed it right off, lived with it and all the excuses and alignments and adjustments for some 6+ years....finally figgered out how to put a rack in it....before any kits on the market...

and not only is the silliness of wandering gone, but the turns ratio is much tighter, instead of some bus driver's ratio of 3.7 turns lock to lock at about 16-1 it's now a much superior 12-1 and 2.7 turns lock to lock....much more attuned to a sporting car with decent rubber.....

it's a VETTE, not a bus.....

Bee Jay

Maybe that is why my wandering and dartiness was so noticeable, I run 275-40/18 tires up front. All better now.
Bee Jay