1957 Steering Wheel Alignment Problem

[TJShea]

Well, this has me stumped and I was hoping someone here might have an answer. I have a 57 with power steering. However, the other day I noticed that the steering wheel was no longer in the proper position. What should be the bottom and at the 6 o’clock position, was now in the 9 o’clock position. I had some recent horn work done and thought the mechanics might have taken the steering wheel off, and not gotten it straight. I took it back to the restoration shop and they took the steering wheel off, lined it up, and tightened it back down. It looked fine. As I drove it out, and let the wheel return to center to drive straight, the bottom was now in the 3 o’clock position???

I did not notice any clunks, or sloppy loose steering etc. Everything seems tight and true, except now the steering wheel if off again, but in 180 degrees from where it was when I brought it in. We tried placing a 4x4 against a front wheel and turning the wheels into the 4x4 to see if there was any slippage. Both directions there was not any. Everything seems tight and “normal.” The mechanics were scratching their heads, and this is way out of anything I could figure out.

They kept the car to try and determine just what could be going on. I thought I would check here and see if anyone had an idea what this may be caused by

 

[knuckle47]

I have recently had my entire column out of the car and always had an issue with the telescoping mechanism. If I pulled the wheel out, it could literally pull out enough to slip off the splines at the steering gearbox and turn 720 degrees or more unless I caught the correct splines in the steering box to slide it back down. The splines on the steering wheel are also “keyed” so the steering wheel (if stock) goes on in only 1 position. If you’ve ruled out any slippage in these connected parts, have they eliminated problems in the steering gear box itself? Especially from lock to lock and re-centering?

 

[TJShea]

I thought I would try and give an update on what caused this. My technical knowledge in areas like this are below novice, but will give it a try.

When the restoration shop mechanics I go to here in Las Vegas tackled this, it was a real head scratcher. Especially since everything seemed tight, and we could not make anything “slip” or “clunk.” All of the parts seemed tight, and nothing was loose or looked too worn, e.g. pitman, etc. In disassembling the steering gear box, they were able to isolate what appeared to be occurring. The steering worm gear was worn in one area. Everything worked fine until a specific series of actions occurred.

Take some of the load weight off the front suspension, and turning all the way to the right. When that happened, the gear could slip. This only showed up when I backed out of their shop bay, down a small decline, which shifted weight to the back, and hard turned to the right. Then, when I went forward, and allowed the wheels to correct to straight, the shaft had slipped moving the bottom of the steering wheel off by 90 degrees. Going forward, and making less than a full right turn, as we tested and retested the steering, did not hit the worn areas, as there was a load on the front of the car and we did not go all the way to the right stops, so everything stayed tight and worked as designed. All of the other similar backing I have done, from out of my garage and the car’s storage garage, have been left turns, and level, so there was a load on the front. Both times the wheel moved 90 degrees, where the downhill backing with a hard right turn.

So, a rebuilt steering gear box went in, and so far all tests look good. Time will tell if they found the culprit.