Steering column play (Page 1/2)
Fierology JAN 15, 05:44 PM
My Fiero an 84 with 163k miles, and I see getting a lot of squirrelliness at 50mph and up, unstable steering, and uneven front tire wear. The problem turned out to be a wired one. Anytime seen this before?

So I went to a shop for an alignment. They picked it up and said the shimmy was because of a looseness in the column universal joints, so they couldn't do a proper alignment. I would have to fix that first. I researched and found Jazzman's awesome write up about the loose bolts in the steering column. Thinking that was most likely the case I took apart my steering column have it on my bench and found that the bolts were not loose. So I proceeded to remove the shaft between the upper steering column and the rack, the one with the two universal joints, pulled it out and found there was no play in the universal joints either. The little play that I found was in the telescopic portion of the shaft that compresses if you have an accident so that the steering wheel does not crush the driver. Is it seems to be a very odd situation. The car is 34 years old with a decent number of miles on it, so, reading about how commonly they loosen, I'm surprised that those 4 bolts in the column are not loose. I will be taking them out putting some red threadlocker on them and reinstalling them to assemble it properly.

The best fix I can divise is to use a drift pin to squeeze the telescoping joint just enough to eliminate the play. My best guess is that this happened because of a rack failure during a cross-country trip where I had to travel a couple hundred miles with a wobbling internal rack bearing until I could get to a service station as part of the rack started to fail in the middle of the midwestern plains. All that shaking for so many miles at around 50/55 miles an hour may have caused a little looseness to develop in that shaft.

I have some pictures to post, but I'm on a time crunch to get the car back together to drive to work tomorrow.
theogre JAN 16, 04:26 PM
Lower and upper shafts have "slip joint" as crush zones to save the driver.
Column Tube and 4 big bolts to the dash frame have crash parts too. Upper bolts go thru 2 aluminum "tracks" w/ plastic to keep in place until you crash.

failure for this is often cause by hitting a curb pothole etc. Many have plastic or rubber between two metal shaft that can fail making shafts slip.
If bad, Need a new shaft.

"fixing" either/both shafts is temporally and dangerous.
If shaft fails after any "fix" can cause legal problems etc depending on what you hit.

------------------
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurassic Park)

The Ogre's Fiero Cave

PatrickTRoof JAN 21, 08:29 AM
I'm having a similar problem. I've recently rebuilt the rack and put in all new tie rods, ball joints, bushings and bearings. But lately the wheel has developed a small amount of play, just as you described. I managed to isolate the problem to the slip joint in the steering shaft as well.

I'm trying to think of how I could tighten it up. I was thinking I could cut some strips of thin sheet metal and slip them in between the two parts of the joint.

I did a search online and was unable to find a source for new replacement steering shafts. I'd really like to get this problem fixedx because I didn't do all of that suspension and steering work only to end up with play in the wheel.
theogre JAN 21, 03:27 PM
Isolate exactly where the play problem is.
See my Cave, Steering
PatrickTRoof JAN 21, 03:55 PM

quote
Originally posted by theogre:

Isolate exactly where the play problem is.
See my Cave, Steering



Hey, it's good to see your cave is back online! I'm pretty sure the problem is in the intermediate shaft, but I will check this weekend to see if it's in the column.
theogre JAN 21, 05:09 PM
Maybe. Or can have several tiny problems making a bigger obvious problem.
Iffy crush zone(s) loose joints etc could all be iffy.
Even a iffy tilt ball at top of tilt column.
PatrickTRoof JAN 21, 05:14 PM
Looking at the list of parts on your site, it looks like those parts are all still available. Do you know of a source for the intermediate shaft, or should I just try to find a good used one if that's the issue?
PatrickTRoof JAN 21, 09:03 PM
I just verified that the play is in the intermediate shaft. The steering column is all tight.
theogre JAN 22, 11:37 AM
Try WTB in the mall section.

But exactly where is the play... "Universal" joints, crush area, both?
Think Lower Uni is "rubber" and maybe replaceable. Might find that in dormanproducts.com Help! etc get thru most part stores.
other areas need a full replacement.

Upper Uni can wear out. Many try to lube but not sure if is safe. If has plastic bearings, Most lubes wrecks most plastics over time and makes big problems. Brake pedal and other have same problem. Brass bearing w/ added lube can have problem too. Wrong new lube even in metal parts can separate and stain anything, go very stiff, etc. Cabin heat can reach 160 ‐ 200°F parked in sun to whatever low temp in winter at night.

Likely some iffy ways to "fix" bad crash zone but they can fail outright and loose steering on the highway.
PatrickTRoof JAN 22, 03:31 PM
Thnks for the tips. I'm certain that the play is in the telescoping joint. I checked the u joints earlier and they don't have any play in them, and I could see the parts of the shaft moving when I went to test it.

I have a friend locally who has a spare shaft, and I'm going to see if it's still tight. I've also found some on eBay that claim to still be good.

Thanks again.