[spaparizos]

I am trying to debug an issue with the car and I am looking to see if people have some suggestions.

I recently got the car serviced and replaced my worn out bushings and replaced a failing steering rack with sector's titanrack (2.5 turns instead of 2.75 turns). The shop also did an alignment after replacing the failing parts.

The car goes straight but the wheel is slightly tilted on the left when this happens. Normally I would think this is due to incorrect toe or perhaps a tie rod issue.

However, when I turn the wheel all the way to one or the other side, the wheel stops at different positions. All the way left stops at the 90 degree position, whereas all the way right stops a couple of inches before that. Now I am thinking that this is the mounting of the steering columns in the rack that is off.

Any thoughts about what might be the issue would be appreciated.

I am attaching 3 photos to illustrate this (straight, all right, all left)

 

[Vulcan Grey]

They didn't center the rack.

When they use the laser Hunter alignment rack, the operator is instructed to turn the wheel all the way each way, the computer detects the center and then then has them go back to center, and then the adjustments are made.

Looks like whoever replaced your components didn't follow those steps... They also might have removed the steering wheel, and put it back on in the wrong spot on the splines...

 

[me73]

Do you race in NASCAR or dirt tracks? This may be a feature!

 

[<@¿@>]

Also, when the rack is not centered as the Vulcan states, you get different bump steer reaction on right hand turns than you do on left hand turns. The rack needs to be centered, then the steering column centered on that. The steering coupling needs to come out to align the wheel to the rack and reinstalled.

 

[spaparizos]

Thanks for the comments! My understanding is fairly limited on this topic, so this is very useful.

If I got this right, it seems potentially they would have to put the car back on the alignment machine, check for the center of the rack and then center the steering column. Looks like I have to verify a couple of steps myself to make sure it gets addressed properly.

.... and to clarify, NASCAR and dirt tracks are not in my plans

 

[MotoGeek]

A similar thing happened to mine, coincidentally with the same rack. Only with mine they aligned the car to the non-centered wheel. I drove it for a year, not even noticing. At my first tire change, the alignment guy pointed it out, and sure enough, the wheel turned farther one way than the other.

 

[David Craig]

The same thing happened to me more than once on a 1984 Corolla and on a 1986 Tercel. I was told that the steering wheel had not been centered during the alignment. A friend told me that (at least on that era of car) they had to basically repeat the alignment to fix it.

One time the wheel had been about 40 degrees turned from the center position another time maybe only 20 degrees. Once it was 5 or 10 degrees off. I sent it back for the 40 or 20 issues but did not bother sending it back for the 5/10 case. I felt I was being too picky for the latter case although it did still bug me.

 

[spaparizos]

I am surprised to hear other people had the same issue. With something so easy to verify (turn the wheel all the way one way or the other) I am a little upset the shop that did the alignment is not testing for it. I scheduled to take it back and hopefully get it fixed.

 

[spaparizos]

I fixed the issue, the shop had not centered the rack and that caused the problem. Thanks for all the feedback.

By the way, the titan rack is a nice upgrade if your steering rack fails. But if my rack was not failing, I would have stayed with the stock one. Not that big of a difference otherwise.