First and foremost, this is my first import. I've been a strictly GM car owner, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy this car, as my friend sold it to me for a mere $200.00. It has the usual hiccups that a car of this age would have, and the odometer nearing the 156k mile marker, it's in excellent condition.

The only issues I'm currently having is the rear valve cover gasket is leaking, the driver side door lock actuator doesn't work and there is a bit of slop in the steering wheel.

The slop is always while making a turn after driving straight. After some inspection, I believe I've narrowed the issue down to the rack & pinion mount itself. I noticed that the rack & pinion has some movement in it that correlated to the slop in the steering wheel.

I tore into the problem today. Removed the bolts for the stabilizer bar so I could get to the bolts to the mount. After a bunch of liquid wrench, some curse words, and a ton of tugging, I was able to get the nut to break free and took the bolt out. I inspected the movement of the rack & pinion while the bolt was out, while it was in part way, and while it was in all the way.

My observations are the mount thats welded to the subframe for the rack and pinion appears to be warn. Instead of the hole being a circle, it's more oval or egg shapped. I was not able to inspect the rack and pinion hole too well, but noticed that there is some sort of metal "grommet" of sorts that is actually inside that hole. It resembles two washers connect in the middle by a small piece of cylindrical metal (ie: pipe like.) I noticed that this "grommet" moves quiet a bit inside the rack & pinion itself and am lead to believe that the hole in the rack & pinion is probably warn as well.

My questions are this.

Has anyone encountered something similar to what I am describing and does it seem as if I have made the correct assumption that this is what is causing the slop in the steering wheel? The rack and pinion should not move at all, correct? What are my possible choices for repair? Worse case scenerio is a new rack & pinion and having someone weld in a new mount on the subframe, but, would like to avoid this obviously expensive route.

The car drives fine otherwise. All though I understand this poses a possible safety risk as the responsiveness of the car is affected, but, only for that quarter of a turn.

Any suggestions?

I figure I can get a rack & pinion from a junk yard pretty cheap, but, not sure how difficult it would be to get the mount fixed cheaply. Perhaps have someone weld a washer over the hole?

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can give me.

 

Did you check for play at both tie rod ends? The one at the steering knuckle and the other hidden by the boot at the end of the steering rack housing.

The steering rack can wear out the main problem being leaking PS fluid out of the rack housing end seals. Any fluid leaking in this area?

If needed another rack suggest looking at a rebuild. The rack is time consuming to remove and no sense installing a used on that may have it own problems.

Send me a private message with email address and can reply with detailed info on the steering system.