Screwy Steering problems.

MustangGT01

Founding Member
Mar 16, 2001
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Unemployment, Ohio
I have a 89 Mustang GT 5.0 automatic vert with some strange steering problems. I wanted to ask yall if yall had any better idea what was going on. Basically, what it amounts to is I have to turn the steering wheel farther to get it to turn at all. I checked the car in park and more or less to turn left the steering wheel is in the 9-8 o' clock position before the wheels even begin to turn. The same goes for turning right. I checked fluid levels and everything is normal. The slop in the steering while driving amounts to 10-2 o'clock before the car make any noticable change in direction. I jacked up the car front drivers side and checked for slop in the wheel and had an inch either way. This is the same side I replaced an inner tie rod not more than 9 months ago. I checked the opposite side as well and found slightly less than 1/4 inch slop either way. The wheel itself is not hard to turn like in a power steering pump failer situation. It feels normal other than the excessive turning required. Any thoughts as to what the problem may be? TIA.
 
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time for a new/reman'd rack (Includes new inner tie rods). then get some new outers since you are doing this stuff.

another thing to check is the rag joint.

good luck.
 
MustangGT01 said:
What the hell is that? :shrug:
if you find that you have slop in the steering shaft/linkage (many do - i.e. turn the wheel but the tires dont move - in your case you have other issues also - rag joint is likely at least partially at fault).

it is a U-joint type deal on the steering shaft (some cars have one in the engine bay before the rack, some also have one inside the car - i cant remember how many stangs have). just like a driveshaft u-joint, they get sloppy and allow one to move the wheel w/o turning the tires.

good luck.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I feel like such a damn moron now. I hopped in MY 89 hatch to go to the parts house to order up a new rack and noticed something.... mine does the same damn thing when turning the wheels. For crying out loud I could hit myself in the head with a bag of hammers. Either both are crapped out or there is nothing wrong with the rack on the GT. Also while I looked in the boots I didn't see any leaks or whatnot.

I did crawl under today and looked at the inner tie rod because of what I noticed with mine. The same damn tie rod I replaced 9 months ago is bad. I would say it's worse than the last time I replaced it. I'm not sure if it's due to the crappy Wayne County roads in Ohio or I just got a bum part. I checked with the parts house and it does have a warrenty on it for replacement. I'm going to go the cheap out this time and just swap out the tie rod for warrenty untill I get a paying job for a complete rack swap.

I know the rag joint thing you mentioned now. I can't remember how many there are on it either but I'll check them out and see if they are bad. Thanks for the advise guys.

:)
 
dont forget to factor in alignment costs in your cost assessments. needing an additional alignment can make 'the cheap route' less enticing in the event of future failure. good luck. :)
 
jaketuff said:
Rack swap cost / idea? Sounds ugly......

OUT
huh?
when i did mine, it was ~100 bucks for the rack (with new inner tie rods).

swapping a rack is pretty straight forward.
 
Swapping the rack isn't a problem. It's easy enough considering other stuff on a Mustang. The most expensive one they had, (rack for a Mustang w/performance suspention), was $114 by itself. Outer tie rods ran about $25 a side. An alignment around here also runs about $50 total.

The parts guy suggested I could get by with a $75 rack though as well instead of the more expensive model. I'm not sure what brand the inner tie rod was that I got though. I believe it was a TRW brand seen here. It did have a lifetime warrenty though so a swap out won't cost more than the alignment. I'm hoping I just got a bad tie rod from them this one time but from what you're saying it may just be a manufacturer thing. I'll check and see what other brand they may carry but they may only honer a direct swap. If it's the case it'll have to hold me till I can get a steady job. In these parts of OH it's not all that easy.
 
not sure what to tell you about the differences. on my 88 GT vert, there were 4 options. ford QR (quick ratio) rack, ford non QR, TRW QR and TRW non QR. i cleaned mine up and saw that it was a ford QR, so that is what i went with.

good luck with it all, bud.