Re[2]: steering effort

[Richard Welty <rwelty@domain.elided>]

On Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:06:05 EDT GModelle@domain.elided wrote:

> Esteemed Digesti,
> Yesterday I had the opportunity to drive a 74 GTV, recently restored.
> The 
> car's steering was much easier than my spider's and I was wondering if
> anyone 
> on the list had experience with what could cause resistance in the
> steering 
> mechanicals. The spider has been lowered, W & D springs, HD sway bars,
> konis 
> with 195-70 tires, properly pressured.  I suspect the tie-rods are on
> their 
> way south, but tie-rod binding doesn't seem to make much sense. The
> steering 
> box has been oiled; all other aspects of the suspension are stock. 

alignment, tire size, and wheel offset can all affect steering effort.
positive caster helps cornering at the cost of increasing steering effort,
which is why it's rarely used to improve cornering in cars w/o power
steering.

wheel offset & tire size changes alter scrub (the distance between the axis
of the ball joints and the center of the tire contact patch); scrub can
definitely increase or reduce steering effort.

also, as i recall, there are two distinct types of steering box for
105/115 series cars; i'm not really conversant in the differences, but
there could be an issue there.

richard
--
Richard Welty                                         rwelty@domain.elided
Averill Park Networking                                         518-573-7592
              Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security
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