RazorN8

I have been trying to find the source of the steering slop in my '87 camaro for a few weeks now. I thought that I had it narrowed down to the steering box, so I replaced that today. In the process of replacing the steeing box, there is a chance that I may have damaged the center link ball joint thing that connects to the pitman arm or the power steering pump. Just my gut feeling that that is where the problem is. The steering box is an e-bay used box as well so that may be contributing.
When driving the car, I can turn to the right just as I could before. I can also turn the wheel back to straight fine. To go left of straight requires about 5X the effort of right. Then it eases up and then gets tight again. I can here the power steering pump hiss as I try to turn left (doesn't happen when turning right). While bleeding the power steering system, I filled the reservoir and started the engine for a few seconds. When I heard a nasty noise I shut it off and asked the guy helping me where the noise came from. he shrugged his shoulders. I then refilled the pump reservoir and started it again when I heard the noise and realized that my helper was not going to tell me where it was coming from, I got out and checked it out. It was definately the power steering pump. I shut the engine off and waited for the foam in the power steering pump to go down, then I filled it again. Thats why I think I may have hurt the pump.
In the past few weeks I replaced the rag joint with an Unbalanced Engineering rag joint eliminator. This could also be causing problems but it was working fine for a week or more.
Please help.

Dewey316

Have your partner get in the car, and move the wheels back and forth from lock to lock, and watch stuff. If the UE rag joint is binding up, you might be able to see it as you might see the shaft move slightly as it tries to overcome the bind, you might also see it on the splines to the steering box. If it is your centerlink or idler arm, you should be able to see abnormal movement there too. Its a tricky one, but your best bet is to watch things yourself, and see if you see anything wrong.

Darkshot

iTrader: (4)

If you can, try a regular rag joint again.

Just sounds to me that the eliminator is binding.

RazorN8

I watched as the wheels were turned left and right and I couldn't see anything. I loosened the Eliminator which helped a little but didn't solve the problem. I'm to the point where I'm going to have to take it in and have it looked at unless you guys can come up with something else. The only thing that I can think of is the center link. When I was putting the nut that holds the pitman arm to the centerlink on, the stud kept spinning. The only way that I could come up with to get the nut on was to jack the linkage up under the grease fitting at the stud. This kept the stud from spinning but may have caused damage to that part of the center link or the tie rods or ball joints now that I think about it.

RazorN8

anyone?

naf

iTrader: (7)

Bad box. Your pump's whining when you try to turn left? That eliminates the rag joint. It's unlikely you damaged the pump, it's normal for it to whine a little while it bleeds air out.

If you damaged the centerlink enough to cause binding, it would bind in both directions unless it's seriously out of whack and hitting a frame member during it's movement left.

Trash and whatnot can get into the hydraulics of the box and cause precisely the problem you're experiencing. The trash keeps the little valve inside from flipping back and provide power assist turning past center. Put your old box back on and see how IT does.

Be sure to buy a little power steering filter before you do any more work. There's a little plastic one that fits into the return line. Runs around $3 at AZ.

RazorN8

yeah the old pump took care of it. I figured that I would do that before I took the car to a mechanic. What is this filter that your talking about? Why would I need it?

naf

iTrader: (7)

Power steering filter. Kinda looks like a metering valve, slips into the return line. It'll filter out any crap that gets into the system and keep it from re-entering the box.