How to straighten steering wheel after new steering box

[dhardison]

Today I installed a new close-ratio manual steering box, but now my steering wheel is about 1/2 turn off. How do I straighten it up? The wheel itself is 'keyed' by the horn switch. Do I have to straighten it, by adjusting the inner/outer tie rods?

Thanks,
Dan

[dhardison]

Correction, the wheel is 1/4 turn off, so I can't fix it at the rag joint.

Dan

[DLinson]

Are you sure you can't remove the steering wheel and reinstall it at the correct position? The horn switch should moveto wherever you need it. I don't have a factory column in my Nova but it is a GM column from Flaming Rivers.

You should steer from lock to lock and find the center of that travel. You could do something similar to a degree wheel for a cam. At that point, remove the wheel and install it in the correct position. Then align the front wheels relative to the rears with the steering wheel in its 12:00 position.

If you have an aligner availible with a means to measure steering angles from lock to lock, then you can check and make sure you have equal travel from left to right. You don't want to just adjust the tie rods to compensate for the offset wheel because you will have a differnce in max steer angle from side to side.

There is a way to measure max steer with strings and a tape measure. If you want to do that let me know and I'll try to explain it or come up with a pics showing how.

DLinson

[dhardison]

D,

It's a factory column and my horn switch rotates with the main shaft inside the column. My steering wheel has a hole where a portion of the horn switch passes through so I have to line up the steering wheel with that hole, thereby putting the wheel out of alignment. I'll take another look at it to see if there's another way to adjust the horn switch.

Otherwise I've looked at this from every different angle, stuff like:

- re-alignment at the rag joint, but the rag joint can only be at two different positions (180 degrees from each other)
- re-alignment at the pitman arm, but the pitman arm is keyed every 45 degrees, and that will rotate the wheel to the other side if 12 o'clock

I didn't really consider that fact that adjusting the tie rods to compensate for the offset wheel because you will have a difference in max. steer angle from side to side, but I really can't think of anything else that will help.

Thanks,
Dan

[Rick Dorion]

When cars come in for an alignment, the steering wheel is centered and the alignment is done, maintaining the centering. I had this done once when my wheel wasn't centered. Did they do it incorrectly? BTW - I just converted from manual to PS and now my steering wheel is 1/4 turn off too.

[dhardison]

Thanks Rick. I took apart the wheel/column today and was able to rotate the horn switch so the wheel is straight (thanks DLinson). The horn button 'cover' (i.e. steering wheel lock 'disc') is keyed, so I had to file off one of the knubs in order to rotate it just a bit. It's REAL close to being centered now, but I'm going to wait until after the alignment to get it "just right".

Dan

[KAA]

I just went through this the other day. I stripped my front end down to the frame to do some cleaning, detailing and installation of new parts. I put a brand new AGR steering box on as well as a new center drag link. I made sure both right and left tie rod assemblies were the exact same length before reinstalling them. Then I counted the number of turns lock to lock and went 1/2 that number from full lock to center the steering box. My steering wheel was off by 1/4 turn. So I had to pull the wheel off and turn the mounting hub to the other position. It will only install in one of two positions. That set the steering wheel perfectly straight. When I set the toe I'll adjust each tie rod equally and I should be very close to centered on the steering wheel. Final adjustments to the tie rods will be made after road testing to make sure the wheel is where I want it.