steering?

[oibrownskin]

Not sure this is the right forum, but here it goes anyway.

I have been noticing lately that my steering has about 1/4 turn of play in each direction, giving it a total of 180 degrees of play from 1/4 to 1/4. Anyhow it never used to be like this. I converted my car to manual steering about 5 months ago and have had no problems with it. I hadnt taken a look at the box or anything until this morning, when I popped the hood and gave the steering wheel the usual 1/4 turn treatment and observed the entire steering system in the engine bay. I noticed that the box was somewhat loose. NO problem I will tighten the bolts down and check again. But if that doesnt work, what could it be? I also noticed that the ring on the end of the column was loose as well. Let me see if I can describe the ring: the steering column has large diameter when it goes through fire wall. The cylinder (column) has the shifting mechanism for my automatic transmission. This cylinder (large diameter) ends at a "ring" and then transitions into the splined piece that my adapter installed onto. the ring at the end was slightly loose as well.

any thoughts?

Caesar

[sputnik71]

skin,

When you say you tightened down the bolts , do you mean the top cover bolts? Or do you mean the adjustment bolt/nut ON the cover? It seems odd for the cover bolts to come loose on their own. All I have is P.S. boxes, no manual, so maybe there's somthing there, but not sure.
As far as the "ring" you talked about, I'm not sure at all there. My car has nothing between the shifter mechanism and the adapter at the box. And my stick shift truck has nothing but the pre-load spring showing before it gets to the "rag" joint. Then it goes to the adapter at the box. Does your car have a rag-joint? My truck does, but my car does not.
-Truck....'80 /6-833 1/2 ton 2WD
-Car.......'71 /6-904 Satellite Wagon.

Sputnik.

[dwc43]

My stock box on my 4x4 has a factory adapter between it and the frame. It came loose twice after I tightened it and it's very hard to get to. Last ime I filled the threads full of lock tite red and tightend it as tight as I could possibly get it. It has never come loose again and that was many years ago. Get you a bottle of lock tite red and pour it on and it should not work loose again on you, but you better hope you never need to remove it again either.