Hi, guys. I've got a '73 coupe and I was in the process of truly centering my steering wheel today. It sits at about 6:30 on the clock face so it's very close already. I've read both of Jim Shea's awesome papers regarding how the steering components on C3's were engineered and I'm happy to report that based on all of the information Jim shared in his papers, the steering is put together properly on this car. Well, except for one thing: the passenger side tie rod ends are reversed. Instead of having the LH threaded tie rod end outboard (near the steering knuckle) and the RH threaded tie rod end inboard (at the relay rod), they've been reversed. The driver's side is set up as Jim's paper describes -- quoting, "By convention, when the tie rod assemblies are assembled to the relay rod, the inner tie rod ends should both have the RH threads".

Now, I realize that while the passenger side is flip-flopped, it still works just fine in terms of setting toe in. It just messes with my head since Jim Shea's papers all talk about adjusting each tie rod adjuster in the same direction (rotation) in order to rectify any given situation where the steering wheel is slightly mis-centered (even though everything else with the steering components is 100% correct). In my case, since I want to rotate my steering wheel a few degrees counter-clockwise, I want to lengthen my driver's side and shorten my passenger side and that would normally mean turning each adjuster sleeve the same direction. With things like I have them, I'll have to rotate one sleeve in one direction and the other sleeve in the other direction.

In the interest of keeping my sanity (and in making things right), I *feel* like I could just leave the entire passenger side "tie rod ends plus adjuster sleeve" together as a unit, undo the castle nuts on both of the passenger side tie rod ends, flip that assembly end for end, and reinstall it. That would put the LH treaded tie rod end to the outboard side and the RH threaded tie rod end to the inboard side. And, it would NOT change the overall length of that assembly so I would not have messed with the toe in setting on that side. Sure, I may have to monkey with the adjuster sleeve clamps to put them in their proper orientations but that's not changing the geometry of things at all.

Assuming that this sounds plausible, my next question is this: how difficult is it going to be to break each of those tie rod ends free from the steering knuckle and relay rod so that I can flip the entire assembly around? I believe that those are interference fit joints and I'm not looking to go buy/rent a pickle fork... on top of that, I don't want to have to worry about the damage to the rubber grease boots.

I guess, in the long run, I'm wondering if it's worth the hassle of bothering to put it right or if I should just live with it and do the mental gymnastics necessary this one time in order to correct the very minor nuisance of the steering wheel not being centered when driving straight down the road. As more fuel for the discussion, be aware that this car is not any sort of NCRS top flight contender. It's just a nice daily driver. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

 

They will probably pop right out with a pickle fork but make sure you have spare rubber boots in case you tear one......
My OCD would have to have them both spinning in the right direction to adjust.

Jebby

 

The original tubes had a groove on the outboard side to help prevent this from happening, but generally, the originals tend to come up missing after fifty years of service so the odds of this happening go up considerably.

I'm with Jebby... Leaving it "as is" would make me crazy. Follow his advice... Use a pickle fork and watch the boots to avoid tearing. If you just installed them, there should be no corrosion present so they should release pretty easily.

Regards,

Stan Falenski

 

before you turn the wheel to center that way, figure out where the turn signal cancel is. the steering column may be right but wheel reinstalled in wrong position. sometimes neither turn signal shuts off correctly if column is too far off. cuz that can't be adjusted like the wheel or tie rod ends. that has to be decently centered first.

 

We're all good there, thanks. The ONLY issue is (was) that the wheel wasn't quite on center when traveling straight down the road despite every other thing in Jim Shea's write up being spot on.

As for the age of the links, Rowdy Rat, I inherited it in this condition from a previous owner so I can't speak to their age or how 'stuck' they'd likely be. And, to make things even quirkier, the adjuster tubes on this car appear to have grooves on both the inboard and outboard ends. Weird, I know. Anyway, I took the easy way out and left things backwards on the passenger side, at least for now. I am OCD, too, but I've got some other things that I need to attend to and can ignore this for now. If I am really bored at some point down the road, I'll pop the passenger side apart and put it back together correctly. But, for now, the work is all done. In order to do the final fine-tuning, though, I think I'll be taking it to an alignment shop to make sure that the toe in is properly set... with the steering wheel at the true 6:00 position when they do it. It's not worth it to me to wear the tires prematurely due to possibly (probably?) being slightly off after the "Jim Shea approved" adjustment method.

 

Agree with above, I would go back and install per standard convention and per Jim Shea's paper, also the same in the AIM.

Reason for me, is pride of workmanship and I would not want the alignment guy saying, "well it was installed backwards by somebody". Plus easy to fix it now, rubber boots are cheap if it gets damaged

Here is a great tool I always use before resorting to the pickel fork and usually works.