I see a lot of you have installed the Steeroids kit and appears everyone like's them. I installed the Steeroids kit on my 75 shark and it seems to drive worse than ever (worse than factory). I took the car and had the frontend aligned but the car seems to have a mind of its own. If you let go of the steering wheel sometimes it will pull sharply to the right but sometimes it will pull sharply to the left. When your driving the car it feels like the entire front end is loose.
Would this poor handling be part of worn rear trailing arms/bushings? There are no squeeks coming from the rear of the car but it does have over 70,000 miles and according to others on the forum probably worn out by now. Does anyone know why my Steeroids kit is handling so poorly? I'm at a lost and not sure what to do next. I'm thinking of starting from the beginning and trying to install again. Any help or clue to what I'm doing or did wrong would be great! Thanks.

 

This may sound odd but remove the power steering pulley belt and go for a slow drive around your neighborhood in what will basically be a manual steering setup. Just be careful but pay attention to how it acts in a straight line. Obviously you'll have difficulty turning the wheels without the assist but maybe see how it acts going straight. Does it jump or pull? This might help you determine if your rack is pulling you directionally or if you have a suspension component causing the problem.

 

ARe your wheel bearings in good shape?

 

i have the steeroids set up and others do also we can walk you through the issues....i had that same issue of the car deciding where it wanted to go and it was a combination of old steering gear and worn out rear end suspension/differential componets.

first you installed steeroids because of what....poor steering?

my guess is that you have a mulitude of issues going on and the steeroids is fixing one portion of it but not all of it. you need to have a 4 wheel alignment done by someone who works on old corvettes or you are just throwing your money away. the rear wheel suspension, bearing and half shafts all contribute to your front end steering. so if these are incorrect or worn the car will not steer correctly. you need to check for rear end wear issues. grab your rear wheels when the car is jacked up at 3 and 9 oclock and rock and wiggle them and then try to do this at 12 and 6 and report back....

I also installed a shim kit in the power steering pump and it made the steeroids feel less "darty" by reducing the pressure.

i doubt you installed it incorrectly but make sure all the bolts are tight. also what tire pressure are you running? go back to the factory pressures which are seemingly really low and see if that helps.

 

Thanks for all the help I sure do need it. Before I begin I want to say all you guys have some really nice looking vetts, I'm envious. I can only hope mine turns out half as good as what I'm seeing. I will post some pictures of mine soon but for now I'm just getting up to speed on the new forum.
Bobsvett77 is correct, I replaced the stock steering because my pickup drove better and I figured if I'm going to own a vette (no matter what year) it needs to drive like a sports car. But your probably right that there are other issues going on and most likely in the rear. So far I have been working on the front end and to date I have replaced the wheel bearings, sway bar and bushings, shocks, brake caliphers and of course the steeroids kit.

I know when I installed the steering knuckles from the steeroids kit I didn't get the steering wheel centered but instead of taking all back apart I figured I would do what the directions said and pull the steering wheel after the alignment and re-center but I think the guys at the shop centered my wheel and then did the alignment and now making the steering pull to one side. The other reason I belive this is the case is the car steers sharper to the right then it does to the left. I told the guy not to worry about centering the steering wheel but I think he did it anyway. Do you think this is part of the problem?
I plan to un-hook the steering knuckles from the steering shaft to try to align the steering wheel before I go any further just because in my head this has to be done because its a rack and works different from old school steering. I would have thought the expert who aligned the car would have known this? Is this the correct thing to do?

I took a look at the rear trailing arms yesterday evening and did the 3 and 9 test and all seems to be good but I do have a squeak on one side when the wheel is turning. I'm guessing I need to replace the trailing arms as the milage on the car says 70,000 but this could be 170,000 or more as I was not the first owner.

Sorry about being long winded but it really helps to talk to someone who has been through the install of a steeroids kit.

I love the car and all that goes with it I just want to get it in shape to drive and maybe show.

Thanks for all the help.

 

What specs did they use to do the alignment?

Did they use factory Corvette numbers or steeroids?


Alignment Specs - Corvette Steeroids
Recommended alignment settings for 63-82 Corvettes with Steeroids:
Front
Toe (total) - 0-1/8" (increase from 0 for greater stability)
Camber - 0°-.25° negative
Caster - 3°-6° positive (add as much positive caster as possible)

Rear
Toe (total) - 1/8"
Camber - 0°-.5° negative

 

steering wheel alignment has more to do with the self cancelling turn signals working properly then anything else and just changing the steering wheel position will not change this. it had to do with the slipping the universal on the steering wheel shaft to begin with, if done right the rack would have been centerred and the steering wheel would have been centered. i dont see how the steering wheel relationship has anything to do with how the car steers or pulls, it just seems "wrong" when its not inthe correct position.

did you replace the steering column bushing?

 

I had them align to the specs provided in the steeroids kit but have not done the rear yet. I was planning on replacing shocks and spring before doing the alignment on the rear. Would this cause the handling to be so bad.

I did not replace the steering column bushing but I guess if I have to pull this back apart to center the steering wheel I can replace if you think it needs to be replaced. Its probably like all the other parts on these cars, you replace one thing that is connected to something else that needs replaced and so on.

 

if the rear end is not set up right nothing that you do up front will make any difference. if you pull the universal off the steering column by all means replace that bearing.

you really need to see whats going on alignment wise in the rear. did you have any rear wheel movement in the 12-6 position? are the struts bent at all from some one jacking on them? what kind of shape are the trailing arm bushings in?

if the rear is not set up properly the car will never steer properly and will change lanes on its own accord

 

Where is the steering colunm bearing located and is it a hard job? I didn't check the 12 and 6 but the arms look pretty bad to me but I'm not sure how to tell by looking.

The thing that really baffles me about the whole deal is that before I did the steeroid change over the car drove okay, you know stay in the lane not a lot of road walking and felt controllable, it just didn't have the quick response you would expect from a sports car.

I think what I really did wrong during the installation was I found the centered the rack while it was out or the car laying on the groung and I guess when I installed the rack it lost its center and this is the reason I'm having so much trouble.

My plan of attack is this, 1 re-center the rack with the steering wheel and replace steering column bearing. 2 Align the front end the best I can by measurment so its drivable again (I plan to replace the tires soon anyway). 3 Go ahead and replace the rear shocks, rear spring with composit or maybe sharkbite. 4 Take her to a shop that knows a little about these older vetts and get front and rear alignment and see if it takes care of the problem

 

Do the alignment first. A good alignment shop will be able to identify problems with the rear suspension, and the rear suspension can easily cause the car to steer wonky.

 

The rear wheel alignment seems to be the consences but I know I have a problem with the steeroids installation, the steering wheel was not centered on the center of the rack, or at least that is my opinion???? I'm really at a loss with what to do next. Big job taking the steering knuckle off the steering colunm but I really think it needs to be done.

 

lets go back a couple of steps.....replacing the steering bearing is a piece of cake and an inexpensive part thats not an issue.

the rack and pinion unit should be centered and the steering wheel and most importantly the turn signal setup should be centered. this will make the turn signals self cancel properly and make the car seem right becaause the steering wheel will be centerdd as you go down the road.

the issues with the rear suspension will not be fixed by a mono spring or new shocks....whats happening is the rear end geometry is changing as you go over bumps creating a rear steer situation going on.....the rear wheel bearings, axle stubs, strut rods and trailing arm bushings are the culprit here not the shocks or springs. you need to figure out which one is the worst and start there. look at the smart struts compared to the stock struts and you can get a sense of what needs to be done to bring the rear end up to todays standards.

 

first thing first, check each step of your steering that can cause problems.

first your steering starts with input from a person then there are a set of bearing in the column that can wear out. these would cause the column inside the car to wobble around a bit. not a big problem.

second is the lower bushing which keeps the shaft that you attached the u-joint to from causing slop. this is located a few inches above the shaft and is held in place by the cap and clip you see in the picture in a above post. this bearing should hold the shaft firmly in place other wise it will cause slop and darty response.

next you need to make sure you didn't wear out the rack with contaminated fluid. very simple watch the u-joints and shaft and see if the rack moves the tires as the u-joint and shaft turn it should respond fairly quickly. if there is slop you need a new rack.

next check to see if your front bushing are worn have the steering weel turned and see if the control arm sway or move against the force of the tires being turned. fairly strait forward.

check each of these before you start throwing more money at alignments. most shops wont do the rear and if they do they charge you for 3 to 4 hours labor to do the front and rear.

 

How long before a contaminated rack starts showing symptoms of going bad? I really hope my racks not giving up the ghost as I just installed and only have maybe 7 miles on it, at the most. So far I havent noticed any problems with the rack except for when returning from the alignment shop it was making a pretty loud click when I turned the wheels sharply to the right with the car not moving. I chaulked it up to the bad alignment because the car will now steer sharper to the right then it does to the left. The rack still appears to be very responsive, when the steering wheel turns the wheels turn.
I think you all make a good point about the steering colunm bearings being sloppy because I noticed when I installed the rack and turned the wheel I could see movement between the two.
This is all good stuff. I'm going to give it a break for a few days and then I will get back at it. I will post some updates and ask for more advice/help in the near future. Thanks all.

 

A few pictures of your front end and steeroids set up would help.
Check to see the angles in the bearings connecting the steering coluomn to the rack are not binding/ bad angles.

 

mine showed slop in a week. I should have rebuilt my pump instead of just flushing it. Yours seems fine if you are getting a quick response. your steering problem is likely worn suspension or as you suspect the alignment. if you got the alignment read out post it, that will let us know if they used a stock alignment or the one provided in the steeroids instructions.

My money would be on worn suspension.

 

I agree. Whether yourself or a trusted tech, look at the pivot points (ball joints and all bushings) prior to changing the other components you have in mind.

If the pivot points cannot hold tolerance, the rest won't do anything to help you. The car will still hunt going down the road.