Steering wheel is 180 degs out?!?

[GassMann]

Hey all,

The rebuild of my 1966 Charger is all but done. I am doing shakedown runs and found one interesting thing that I can't figure out what happened. I rebuilt my steering gearbox but I have two issues with it.

1. The steering wheel is 180 out.
2. The steering feels a bit sloppy.

I know I need to tighten the gear shaft a bit more to work out the slop but the 180 out is weird to me. The steering column input spline is key's so, as far as I can tell, it can only go on one way. The only thing I can think of is to pull the pitman arm and rotate the steering wheel. But I don't think that will do the trick.

I must have assembled it 180 out but wanted to tap the collective brain trust before I pull the gearbox back out and tear it down once more.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[R/T Boy 67]

Was the steering coupler taken apart? Incorrect assembly could cause both problems.

 

[Photon440]

When centered, do you have the same number of rotations going fully left or right? Perhaps the tie rods are out of adjustment.

 

[toolmanmike]

When centered, do you have the same number of rotations going fully left or right? Perhaps the tie rods are out of adjustment.

Possible but the tie rod ends weren't changed that we know of.

 

[GassMann]

Was the steering coupler taken apart? Incorrect assembly could cause both problems.

R/T Boy 67... YES is was. That's it. Holy crap. Never thought of that. Yes... the coupler was disassembled, cleaned and I put the damn thing back together backwards.

Wow... thanks man.

 

[GassMann]

When centered, do you have the same number of rotations going fully left or right? Perhaps the tie rods are out of adjustment.

Thanks for the response Photon440... I did center the tie rods before I aligned the wheels and I do have about the same travel in both directions.

 

[GassMann]

Possible but the tie rod ends weren't changed that we know of.

I did a full front end rebuild on this. Bushings, ball joints, tie rods, pitman and idler arm are all brand new. Plus I upgraded to disks in the front.

 

[R/T Boy 67]

Also, if the shoes are not oriented properly, it will cause slop in the coupler.

 

[GassMann]

Also, if the shoes are not oriented properly, it will cause slop in the coupler.

That's good to know R/T... I am taking it apart again so I will dig deep into alignment for sure.