GRADUAL STEERING MOVEMENT

[cab83_750]

What would cause my steering wheel to not return to being "centered" after making a sweeping right turn. I mean, while driving on the freeway, as the road turns right, the car requires a lot of steering effort clockwise to make the turn. Then, the steering wheel is not centered anymore. The car still drives straight.

This seems to be a very gradual problem. It is becoming very prominent this morning (my wheel is not longer centered!). I just had the car lowered about 2 weeks ago to euro specs, plus the appropriate alignment.

I have searched the archives with no success. Any input would be appreciated.

[BRAINIAC]

Make sure the 2 bolts that attach the steering rack to the car are tight. Did you install the rack spacer kit when you had it lowered? If you did, maybe they didn't get the bolts properly torqued. What you described is common on cars with racks mounted in rubber bushings which go bad. If you turn to the right the steering wheel is off to the right. Turn to the left, it's off to the left. 911s are directly mounted to the chassis, so only loose bolts (even slightly loose) could cause this.

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Tyson Schmidt
72 911 Cabriolet
92 C-2 Cabriolet

[nhromyak]

Loose tie-rod could do this too...

If one tie-rod looses then to drive straight, you steering will change. Of course now you probably have a toe-in condition.

Good luck.

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Nick Hromyak
'85 Carrera 7 & 9 Fuchs
Havin' Fun in Sacramento

[cab83_750]

I could not wait for the responses so I went ahead and checked the car last night. And yes, the story is:

One rack spacer and one bolt were gone.
The other stayed but loose.

I had to remove the remaining one and just stayed with regular (no rack) set-up; I kept the old bolts. The only dilemna that I have now is....should I put the rack spacers again? Does anybody know if European P-cars that came lowered from the factory have spacers that we 'monkey around' here in U.S.?

I love working on my vehicles/toys and I do not mind buying the spacers again as they are cheap.

Note: Next time, when instructions says use LOCTITE, I should use LOCTITE.........and FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!

Thanks for the info.