Diagnosing rack and pinion steering problems

Copyright 2015 by Morris Rosenthal All Rights Reserved

Cars are dangerous and can kill people who work on them - proceed at your own risk. Diamond
symbols linked to decision text. I've also posted a series of flowcharts for troubleshooting laptops
and PC troubleshooting.
Troubleshooting vibrations, car tire wear,
steering difficulty and wheel looseness
Does the steering wheel feel loose, like it has slack in it that needs to be taken up when you turn?
Even more importantly, do you feel looseness in the wheels if you shake a front tire back and forth
with the car sitting on the ground? Looseness here doesn't mean that everything moves, unless your
car is very heavy, shaking a front tire will cause movement. The question is whether or not the wheel
moves without the whole car moving, and if you get any sort of loose clunking or clicking sounds
when you shake the tire.

Return to Steering Diagnostic Chart

If shaking the tire shows that the wheel is loose, the first thing to check is that the lug nuts are all
tight. If any of the lug nuts turn out to be loose, it's a good idea to remove the wheel and take a good
look at the wheel studs to see if they've been damaged or cross-threaded. Studs are cheap enough to
replace, every auto parts store carries them. Remount the wheel, run the nuts up snug, and follow a
star pattern for the final torqueing when the car is back on the ground. Lug nuts shouldn't require
loctite to stay on, so if you have a repeating problem with your lug nuts, you might want to replace
them or the studs.

Return to Steering Diagnostic Chart

Does the wheel still shake after the lug nuts holding the rim to the wheel assembly are tightened? It's
possible that the axle nut has loosened up, but you'll have to remove the little hub cover to check.
The axle nut can't loosen up too much because it's captured by a castellated retaining washer and a
cotter pin, or the axle nut itself may be castellated. But if the cotter pin was improperly installed or
damaged, the axle nut might loosen up enough to allow the wheel to shake. You should never need
to run the nut in several turns, if it's that loose, it's probable that the wheel bearing has been damaged
or disintegrated. Ultimately, the wheel is only attached to the vehicle by the one nut which holds the
axle in the wheel bearing. The lug nuts only attach the wheel to the mounting hardware, which is
held in place by that axle nut. Otherwise, the wheel wouldn't be able to spin.

Return to Steering Diagnostic Chart

Since this flowchart is for MacPherson strut rack and pinion steering only, there's no upper control
arm or upper ball joint in the picture. The MacPherson strut is the single point of attachment for the
upper part of the steering knuckle. The spring and the plates that hold the coil spring in place, along
with any rubber mountings, are pretty reliable unless there's a manufacturing defect or corrosion
failure. But people do report broken coil springs from time to time, sometimes due to a noticeable
loud rattle when driving down the road, though I'd expect the corner of the car to sag as well. Rubber
bushings may fail with age in some climates, and it's also possible for the unibody shock tower to rot
out so badly that the top strut connection is no longer secure. MacPherson strut failure is normally
due to the strut damper (shock absorber) part of the assembly failing. If there's an obvious oil leak
from the strut damper, it's bad, but minor leaks may be normal (at least according to my old shop
manual). There shouldn't be any looseness in the mountings, if you can twist around the top of the
strut (shock), the rubber bushing must be gone. The most basic test for a bad strut is just bouncing
the corner of the car up and down. If the strut is bad, it will take more than two or three up and down
moves for the car to settle after you stop pushing it.

Return to Steering Diagnostic Chart

If you jack up the car and get the tire off the ground, does shaking the tire with one hand on the top
and the other hand on the bottom shake the whole wheel, produce little clunking or clicking sounds?
That's typical for a failed lower ball joint. Ball joints look pretty much like the name, it's just a
captured ball with a post sticking out the top or the bottom, which moves (very stiffly) in its housing.
If you wiggle the grease fitting and you get movement, the ball joint is shot (unless the grease fitting
happens to be breaking off). The lower ball joint is the main connection holding the steering knuckle
(and thus the wheel) onto the car. The other steering knuckle connections are more about control and
alignment. If the rubber boot on the ball joint is broken and it hasn't been greased on a regular basis,
it's probably bad.

Return to Steering Diagnostic Chart

Is the tie rod loose? With the car sitting on the ground, can you shake the tire left to right, and feel
looseness with a soft clunking or ticking noise? With the car jacked up and the tire off the ground,
does shaking the tire the left to right produce more looseness and clinking than shaking the tire from
top to bottom? The left to right looseness is a sign of a worn component in the steering linkage,
which is what controls the wheel movement in the left-right direction. It could be the tie rod end,
which connects the tie rod to the steering knuckle through a ball joint, it could be the inner tie rod
joint, which attaches the tie rod assembly to the piston end coming out of the rack, or it could be
looseness in the rack itself. I have an illustrated page with photos and videos for diagnosing tie rod
problems, and replacing the tie rod end or the inner tie rod.

Replacing the inner tie rod usually requires a special tool, but it's only around $50, or you may be
able to borrow or rent one from your local parts store. The real problem is that you may have to
remove the rack in order to replace the inner tie rod, if it is staked or pinned to the shaft. There's
generally not enough room to swing any tools around the inner tie rod joint, but you may be able to
get it if you have large a large crows foot and a couple feet of extension for your ratchet. The job
isn't that complicated, but any time you remove the outer tie rod, you should count the exposed
threads or take a good picture first so you can reassemble it to exactly the same length - otherwise
you'll change the toe and need to realign the the wheels.

Return to Steering Diagnostic Chart

I've never had a steering column completely apart, though I've had to pull the steering wheel to
replace the blinker assembly. Between the steering wheel and the pinion gear in the rack, which is
the gear that translates the rotation of the steering shaft to the horizontal movement in the rack, a
coupling is required. My current car uses two universal joints in the steering coupling, tilt steering
systems require something more complicated, a ball type joint. Couplings all wear over time, so it's
possible that looseness you feel in the steering wheel, especially if it feels like there's a little slack
that needs to get taken up when you go from one direction to the other direction, is a worn coupling.
But a worn coupling between the steering wheel the the pinion gear shouldn't translate into a
looseness in a front wheel when you shake the tire.

Return to Steering Diagnostic Chart

Of course, any problem relating to looseness or clunks in the steering can be due to the entire rack
moving. There shouldn't be any looseness in the rack, not if you shake it by hand and not if you
watch it while having somebody steer the wheels back and forth with the car sitting on the ground.
That can happen because mounting bolts were left out following a repair, because the mounting bolts
to the crossmember were improperly tightened, or because that crossmember mounting points on the
unibody frame have rusted away. The latter case, the unibody rusting out so badly that the one of the
crossmember bolts wasn't holding anything happened with my Omni. I've heard of people driving
cars where the rack was basically just hanging in place, supported by the tie rods, and steering
couplings. You'd have to be pretty whacked to drive around like that, and I can't imagine the joint to
the pinion gear could last very long if it was the only mechanical point steering the front wheels.

If the rack is tight, the tie rods are good, and there's no looseness in the steering wheel or in the front
wheels of the vehicle, the jerks in the steering, stuttering or surges you feel when turning may be due
to a power steering pump problem. The first check is always to make sure you have enough power
steering fluid, and that it isn't all frothy and full of air bubbles, or overheating and overflowing. A
loose drive belt on the pump can be at fault, or the pump itself may be failing. Power steering pumps
are vane type pumps, which are highly reliable, but the shaft bearings can wear out, especially if the
belt is too tight, or a vane can stick, and fluid contamination can cause failure. Note that some people
change power steering fluid on a regular basis, as often as they change their engine coolant, like
every 30,000 or 50,000 miles. As I write this, I don't believe I've ever even made up fluid in my
power steering, and that's 269,000 miles. But now that I think of it, I'll take a look later and see how
the color is. New power steering fluid would either be pink or honey colored, and while you expect
those colors to fade, black or brown would probably be a sign that it's overdue.

Return to Steering Diagnostic Chart

Does the steering wheel pull to one side or the other as you drive? Equally important, if you're
traveling down a straight, level road, does the whole car pull to one side or another if you take your
hands off the wheel? It's important to check (don't do it in traffic or on a residential street) because
some power steering systems eliminate all of the road feel, so you wouldn't even know that the car
was trying to pull in one direction. If you notice the car wandering back and forth, or it seems to pull
one direction or the other inconsistently, it could be that toe is set incorrectly on both wheels, and an
alignment is in order. Wander may also be due to loose or worn wheel bearings, or worn out
bushings on the lower control arms, where they connect to the crossmember. Check for uneven tire
inflation before moving on.

If the pulling only comes with hard acceleration on a front wheel drive car, you may have torque
steer. Torque steer is caused by the differential sending too much power to one wheel on
acceleration, normally because it senses a positive difference in the mass or tire diameter too that
side. Differentials like to send more power to the side with the best traction, and can be fooled by the
front tires being missmatched, or one tire being heavily weighted. The only time I ever had an issue
with torque steer is when I was troubleshooting whether a vibration was caused by a bent front axle,
and tried to balance it out by counterweight the axle with a custom lead weight I fashioned. Even
thou