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Stiff steering no matter what steering rack I put in

Svenska_Monokrom

Professional Lowballer
Joined
Aug 15, 2016
Location
Oakland, California
I'm sort of a noob when it comes to the steering systems on 240s but basically my 1986 volvo 240 has had annoyingly stiff steering since about a month after I bought it (almost a year now).

I finally got around to changing the steering rack with a low miles one but after installing it, it's literally been the exact same. Correct me if I'm wrong but I would have thought if the new rack was bad as well, it'd feel a different type of bad.

As for more small information:
-Stiff regardless of how fast the car is going, when sitting still or driving.

-no real leakage that we've been able to see.

-we changed the power steering pump to the design with the reservoir on the pully.

-install was really clean of the new pump.

-tires are properly inflated.

Just curious if there's anything we're missing here, we though about ball joints being bad which one is kinda iffy but we're not sure if that'd effect the steering ease.
 
I think the lower ball joints can be put on backwards and cause this.

I thought that caused the opposite, no caster and so vague steering that doesn't return to center.

OP, that's kind of odd. You sure you don't have a kinked or otherwise restricted line?
 
Check the crank pulley. It may be slipping.

B230Balancer1.jpg


B230Balancer2.jpg
 
-Stiff regardless of how fast the car is going, when sitting still or driving.

Stiff as in hard to turn and it snaps back too strongly, or stiff as in hard to turn AND you have to help it back to center?
How about when it's up in the air, with no weight on the front wheels?
Does the steering shaft turn nice when disconnected from the rack?
Does the shaft u-joint wobble freely in both directions?
 
I thought that caused the opposite, no caster and so vague steering that doesn't return to center.

OP, that's kind of odd. You sure you don't have a kinked or otherwise restricted line?

Weve checked all the lines and none of them are really restricted and theyre mostly new.

Did you align it ?

I do admit we havent aligned it which might be the issue but honestly not sure. I do however know with the old rack, the car was aligned and was fine and then wasnt out of nowhere.

Or bad strut mount bearings.

Anthony suggested this as well, We plan on looking into it first chance we get.

Stiff as in hard to turn and it snaps back too strongly, or stiff as in hard to turn AND you have to help it back to center?
How about when it's up in the air, with no weight on the front wheels?
Does the steering shaft turn nice when disconnected from the rack?
Does the shaft u-joint wobble freely in both directions?

- Stiff as in hard to turn, at least with the new rack the return is perfectly fine. The old rack was iffy on both fronts.
-We put it in the air and the steering is ok. Every symptom is when the cars on the ground,
-To be honest, we do need to look into the steering shaft. Only time we ever touched it was when installing the new rack and we kept the original u-joint.

Check the crank pulley. It may be slipping.

We'll have to look into this as well.
 
Mine was like stiff and it turned out to be the knuckle. I greased and freed it up..no more stiffness. But you should've seen the condition of the knuckle when the rack got changed
 
So basically were going to look over the knuckles/ujoints and see what happens from there...

if it helps any, my car also has really bad bump steer and im running basically stock height. Not sure if alignment has anything to do with that. Steering systems are not my forte.
 
How are you getting bump steer on factory ride height?

You riding on bent control arms?

I dont even know man, the car was once riding pretty damn low and the bump steer was bad then and then when we raised it back up to stock it decided that nothing should change.

Riding through bad oakland streets requires lots of focus and good grip :lol:
 
Post a picture of this sled
Shes the's blue 245 in infront of the s60r. Two tone with black roof, dark grey tethys, and the taillight I just broke.

uGn3vGFl.jpg


'Nuther thought...
Stock size and offset wheels, or some super-wide stick-out-the-fender things that totally mess up the scrub radius?

yeah, Im just running p2 17"x7.5 tethys with 25mm spacers all around. Weve thought about this but the steering is/was pretty terrible.

Was because i just found out at least a part of why my steering was so bad. I somehow overlooked the second knuckle under the brake booster. I sprayed it down with wd40 to test and my steering was suddenly about 50% better. Definitely managable steering effort.

I plan on looking over alot of the other steering components later on though.
 
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