Jay Wellwood asked that we return to more technical aspects, so here's one...

My '83. New steering rack, tie rods, and steel ball joints + eccentrics 9/01. Alignment (by a former RUF wrench) and inspection of my work shortly thereafter. All OK until...

Car recently began to pull right (steering wheel requires turn from 2 o'clock to 12 o'clock to continue straight). On hard braking, wheel immediately pops left past 12 o'clock to 10 or 11 but car does not follow - continues on path previously established.

Visual inspection (suspension/brakes) and torque check of bolts shows nothing strange. Have not checked wheel bearings, and am thinking of pursuing the bushing on the intermediate steering shaft per Nichols' tip here.

Any experience and/or diagnosis would be much appreciated.

Thanks, all.

 

With that much pull to one side you could string it and find out if something went askew in the alignment toe in/out. Take a carpenters square and measure camber any detectable difference with a measuring tape will show up.

 

I profess that I don't know the answer...but I'll throw out a few things to think about.

What kind of tire wear is being experienced? Any problems there? Thinking about the response your steering is giving you make me think that you may have a wheel bearing that needs adjustment.

If you hadn't had the rack recently replaced I would think this is the culprit - did the car behave this way prior to the work you had performed on it? Or has it started since then?

good luck - keep us posted

 

James,

From a technical standpoint, I would not worry so much about the pulling - that's generally just something out of adjustment. The sudden pop back is cause for GREAT concern. The steering intermediate joint is worth looking at, all the fasteners around it. Honestly, the fit was so tight on mine before I installed the bolts, I find it hard to believe that is causing it (unless improperly installed, and it is NOT fun to get the teeth lined up right). But it could be. Also check the "rag joint", looks like a tire chunk higher up the steering shaft.

Bad front bearings could create that symptomology, but not for long. If they're are that far gone, they will soon squeal for ~10 miles, then frag. Hopefully your wheel stays on when the bearing goes superchunk. It might not.

When you went through the nuts and bolts, didja check the upper a-arm nuts, the shock mounting nuts (top and bottom), and the lower a-arm bolts as well?

Also, forgive the obvious, but how are your shocks? A collapsed/blown shock can make your car doing very very strange things.

HTH

Greg

 

How to know when you are too deep into your 928: when a trip to Florida, from Minnesota, in November, is only an unwelcome intrusion into time that could be spent on your suspension.

I'm a sick, sick man.

Results soon. Thanks all

 

Greg, I have to thank you for quite possibly saving my life.

I had checked torque on all the bolts, but having read your post I decided to make a more careful check. I found something that I have never seen before...

The lower control arm bolts, to the rear of the front arm, would torque to spec, BUT...they had lateral play that you wouldn't believe. From what I can tell, the threads are stripped part of the way up, allowing the bolt to tighten but also allowing movement within the bolt hole. This is a WAG so far...I will confirm shortly...but I can confirm that movement of the control arm is what was causing the steering snap; I can reproduce it manually, albeit to a smaller degree.

This is so not good...but it's nice to have an answer.

I hope no one else has this happen, but I would take the time to carefully check the condition of ALL of the suspension bolts, if you have vibration, a pull, or worse. Or just to be safe.

James

 

James,

Glad to hear you are well, just doing my part to help keep us all here. Sounds like you may have found the problem. Not sure if you have the manuals or not - If you don't, be aware that you are not supposed to torque the rear lower A-Arm mount until the car is on the ground with weight on that wheel. You are supposed to snug it up, lower the car, then reach under and torque those two bolts down. That may have been done improperly at some point, or something may have corroded and failed on that mount point. I think those bolts screw into a threaded tube that's welded to the unibody (it's been a coupla months and I just don't remember). That weld may have failed.

Once you have torqued those bolts to spec, you should have NO lateral play in that lower

Keep us posted,

Greg

 

...exactly what has been running through my little head. I've wasted a few hours of work time having a Malox moment over this one. Picture your control arms doing the Lambada at 80 and you'll feel it too.

Serious question - anyone have any experience with using Helicoil or similar on high-load pieces? And no, I won't be using any of the expoxy thred-fixr stuff.

Retap + larger bolt seems like the safest way, but I'm worried about tolerances and getting the walls too thin - particularly in the "supporting bow", as the PET calls it, which cradles the control arm.

Welding will be my last ditch, and probably only if I find something broken.

Porsche - the mechanical education you didn't know you wanted.

Stay tuned...

 

Ok, the final analysis. As dad told me, always check the simple stuff first...

The bolts. Upon replacing them with 10.8, 12X1.5X80 bolts, everything torques and nothing moves.

The previous bolts were stripped at odd intervals, some threads missing, and the bolt holes filled with copious amounts of road goo.

Apparently, the front suspension was toe-ing itself in immediately under hard braking.

It also cured a variety of ills, including the steering flop, the pull to the right, the tendency of the chassis to "set" all at once in hard sweepers, and a vibration.

No rethreading required.

Don't know how they were torquing correctly, but all is a-ok now.

Thanks, all.

James

 

Along this message thread; check your upper
steering shaft bearings,they tend to creep
down the shaft or disintigrate. Replacement
is reletively cheap and pretty easy but you
must remove the pod.
Besides a little slop the bad bearings will
wear out the horn sounder ring.
Both my cars were already failed when I got
them; one at 91K miles, the other at 94K.