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Diagnosing bad steering gear/box on 74 Eldorado

Started by danjarrett1, January 04, 2019, 09:59:21 AM

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danjarrett1

In one of my earlier posts, I complained of my “ wandering Eldorado” lots of good repsonses from members. One of them suggested a worn  steering gear in the steering box. My car has 62k miles on it, on the surface, that would seem unlikely but possible I suppose. Does anyone have a definitive test for determining if the gearbox is out of spec? Is there as adjustment? Is there a port for filling it with oil? Traditional gear oil ? I have never checked it, there doesn’t appear to be any leakage but honestly I haven’t paid that close attention to it . Thoughts?
1974 Cadillac Eldorado convertible
2007 Cadillac Escalade
1980 Cadillac Seville “Bustleback”
1985 Cadillac Eldorado

"Cadillac Kid" Greg Surfas 15364

Da
play in the steering box is easily detected by manually turning the input shaft and seeing how far it can turn before the pitman arm on the output shaft moves.  The steering box is lubricated by the power steering fluid that circulates in the system.
I do suggest you get a factory service manual if you do not already have one.  There are very complete descriptions of the steering components and any adjustments.
Greg Surfas
Cadillac Kid-Greg Surfas
Director Modified Chapter CLC
CLC #15364
66 Coupe deVille (now gone to the UK)
72 Eldo Cpe  (now cruising the sands in Quatar)
73 Coupe deVille
75 Coupe deElegance
76 Coupe deVille
79 Coupe de ville with "Paris" (pick up) option and 472 motor
514 inch motor now in '73-

TJ Hopland

You could have wear with fairly low mileage.  These are very heavy cars so if those miles included a lot of maneuvering that could cause wear.

The boxes can wear in 3 ways including a little in all 3 places that together adds up to a lot.     The input shaft is a worm gear.   When it operates the pressure pushes or pulls on the shaft.  There are thrust bearings that can wear or be out of adjustment.  If the wear is significant you can see the shaft move in and out of the box as someone rocks the wheel. 

There is then the gear mesh between the input and output.  Those normally don't wear evenly all over, you can get wear in spots where it spends a lot of time.  There is also an adjustment there.  To check this you would usually point the wheels fairly straight then just compare input movement to output.   

The last place is wear in the output shaft.  This one has the pitman shaft on it and wears side to side and will usually leak fluid.  To check this just find a reference point between the shaft and the box itself and look for side to side movement. 

Don't go randomly making adjustments to these.  You can get into big trouble pretty quickly.  I had one I made a slight adjustment to that helped a little.   I got greedy and tried another adjustment.  It got better thought I was in good shape so went for a longer test drive.   Made it down to the end of my block and when I turned onto the main road it completely locked up.   The adjustments are something you do on the bench when you assemble one and then should never be touched again.   
StPaul/Mpls, MN USA

73 Eldo convert w/FiTech EFI
80 Eldo Diesel
90 CDV
And other assorted stuff I keep buying for some reason

danjarrett1

Great answers guys! Greg, I do have the factory shop manual, just haven’t research steering box issues in the manual yet. Looks Ike the Lares Company in MN in a good source for rebuild/replace if necessary
1974 Cadillac Eldorado convertible
2007 Cadillac Escalade
1980 Cadillac Seville “Bustleback”
1985 Cadillac Eldorado

Dave Shepherd

Careful with Lares, I had them do a very expensive overhaul on a 50's Mopar box.. won't go into the details but it was not right, they wanted it back to go over it, the r and i work was 4 hours!!