If you’re stating that the steering feels like the tires are hanging in the air and not connected to the road, sorry to inform you….
That is how many of these cars were when new.
You can improve on it though. Sometimes the issue is a matter of worn parts, other times it could be as the above members suggested: Loose connections or maybe even the alignment settings.
Don’t be tempted to buy a remanufactured steering box from Rock Auto or the local parts store. Those are simply disassembled, cleaned and reassembled with new seals. Whatever worn hard parts were in it before may still be in there afterwards and it won’t feel any tighter than before.
You have options but none of them are cheap.
The original design of the Mopar power steering unit featured a lot of boost along with a lack of feel back to the steering wheel. If the problem is traced to the steering box itself, There are two rebuilders that I know of that specialize in performance type changes.
Firm Feel in Washington state and
Steer and Gear somewhere in the Midwest. Both have great reputations. I had a FF Stage 3 steering box in my car for over 20 years but maybe less than 15,000 miles. It was great for awhile but the internals wore enough to where the free play was just too much for me. I’m told that free play is a design flaw that all Mopars had and that no amount of work can fully eliminate it.
Many guys have swapped in a Borgeson steering box and been happy with it. I have one and I swapped in another to a friends car. The feel is much better than any OEM or rebuilt Mopar box I’ve driven with. Again, not cheap but this is the best option in my opinion. Please report back with what you find out. Sharing information here helps us all out.
Cheers
No matter what, I’d suggest that the front end should be aligned to obtain as much caster as you can get. More caster and slight negative camber will make the car react and steer better. All new cars have alignment settings that are far more aggressive than our old cars were. The engineers back in the old days aimed for easy steering effort, not much for improving the response! Radial tires and safety concerns prompted automakers to improve the handling of the cars.
