lespaul166

So recently I had my power steering rack in my 86 GXL depowered. During installation i noticed that i could not turn the rack out of the vehicle, no matter how much effort I put into it. I figured it was a new rack and as such needed to be broken in, and proceeded with installation. bolted it down, threw the tie rods in, and grabbed the wheel to turn it so i could access a bolt better. Nope. Wheel wasnt going anywhere. And this is on a car lift, so these should turn fairly easy. They did before. I figured I was far enough in and what would it hurt to just hook the I-shaft up and give it a go. Man, i had to give that steering wheel a fairly heavy pull to get it to let go and start turning (again, with the wheels off the ground.). Threw it on the alignment rack for a Toe and Go, and took it out for a test drive. Dear god, this thing was HARD to turn. Ive driven cars with broken P/S belts that were easier than this. Driving straight was terrifiying because if the wheel was turned anything less than 45* at any speed...it just didnt return to center. You have to physically pull the wheel back to center. Im hazarding a guess that when the rebuilder set the preload, it got set far too tight, leading to excessive effort required to turn at speed, and the steering not returning to center.

Does anyone know how to set the preload on one of these racks so I can back it off a bit? Right now even going 25 MPH it requires a fairly high amount of effort to turn. I know the 15.2:1 racks are supposed to be tough, but this is obscene, and would be offensive even in a track setting, possibly even moreso.