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My car must be possessed, I’ve removed the steering wheel 6 times and adjusted it to straight. Next day it’s off center again. I’ve even tried to adjust it with it not bolted to the shaft and driving the car while adjusting it. It’s fine until I drive the car the next day and it’s off again. Anyone have any suggestions on what is going on? I’m thinking about have an Exorcist stop by.

Popee

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Hey guys, it sounds like the clamp on the pitman arm to me.  What do y'all think?

@Popee, the pitman arm is held to the shaft by a bolt that has to be reeeeeeally tight to remove all lay from that connection.  If not, it can shift enough to be noticeable in the steering wheel position.  One minute straight ahead is perfect and the next it's off to one side or the other, depending on the direction of the last turn you took.  It's unnerving, to say the least.

To fix it you need to get access to the bolt in the pitman arm and, using  long bar to give you a lot of leverage, tighten it just a bit.  Even one flat on the bolt can solve your problem.  I fought this issue for two years before Leon Chupp told me what to do.

@Popee posted:

My car must be possessed, I’ve removed the steering wheel 6 times and adjusted it to straight. Next day it’s off center again. I’ve even tried to adjust it with it not bolted to the shaft and driving the car while adjusting it. It’s fine until I drive the car the next day and it’s off again. Anyone have any suggestions on what is going on? I’m thinking about have an Exorcist stop by.

Popee

Interesting.....does it keep on skewing after every trip you take it on? Just wondering...Good info on the Pitman arm.

Removing the wheel to center it is NOT the way to straighten it. Your pitman arm is most positively NOT dead center now when the wheels are straight ahead. And it should be.

You're supposed to center the pitman arm and the wheel goes on straight then. After that, you adjust the tie-rods to make it track straight and have the correct toe-in.

Steering boxes are adjusted at ONE spot for minimum play. That spot is dead center, and only dead center. Moving the wheel a couple splines and then using that as center is NOT the way to do this.

Check the Bentley manual if you don't believe me.

I’ll suggest something that is probably silly, and very likely not your issue.  But your last photo reminded me of something that happened to me during one (or was it two?) steering wheel reinstallations as part of a horn button upgrade.

As it turns out with my setup, there was more than one way to line up the holes in mating parts to mount the steering wheel - one was correct, one was clocked just a little bit off.  I apparently hadn’t noticed that the steering wheel was not at 12:00 when I pulled it off (I must have nudged my steering wheel one way or the other near the end of my latest garage entry) but I was able to mount it pretty close to 12:00 as my car sat.  When I drove it next, I didn’t notice anything akilter until after I backed out of my garage and was driving forward in a straight line.

You have experienced this several times, so it’s hard to imagine my cause has anything to do with your problem, but I do wonder - when you are sitting in your garage installing the steering wheel “straight”, what are using as a reference to know it starts out actually straight?

OK, time for me to head back to my 5th percentile corner of the tent.  

Carry on.

@DannyP posted:

Good one Carlos, yeah, check that crush cage(if you have one) They FAIL after 50 to 60 years, especially if the shaft has side pressure on it due to steering box angle.

Crush cages need to be very carefully inspected by removing all paint sanding then cleaning well to inspect for even for the slightest hairline crack or what appears to bea simple indentation. I've discovered' two, once driving on to a trailer and it snaped at the stout factory weld, the second time was after a highly spirited drive and pulling into my driveway the crush cage deformed and snapped. Lucky both times... Personally I  now "steer" away from crush cage columns on project builds.

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