Re: Addiing power steering

Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2008/7/31 9:20:44

You may be surprised how easy your car is to steer without power steering if everything is up to factory specs.

Have the front end checked over and replace worn parts. Then have an alignment done.

It should steer and drive very easily as long as the car is moving. For parking it will require a little muscle.

But back when the car was new ladies and chicken muscled tycoons drove them so they couldn't be too hard to steer.

There may be another reason for hard steering, radial tires.

Today's radials are draggier than bias plies. But there is a way around that too.

If the steering is set up to factory specs and it still steers too hard there is another improvement that can be made.

Have the front end man set up the front end with little or no caster. This will make steering easier.

If you do this you have to add a steering damper to control shimmy. Steering dampers are a standard accessory used on a lot of Jeep type vehicles, not expensive or hard to install, they just clamp on.

German cars have been set up this way for years, with low caster and steering dampers. It makes the steering easy and accurate without power steering.

Try this before you add power steering. You should at least have the front end checked and brought up to factory specs and aligned even if you do add power steering. So the effort won't be wasted and it might save you some work and some money.