Steering issues on 70 Chevelle

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007

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Have a 70 Chevelle 396 SS. All of a sudden my steering wheel is off center causing my blinkers to not work properly. In addition I am getting a whining noise under hood. Belts seem fine and the noise appears to be coming from the power steering pump. Steering itself feels a bit off but the car has a whole new front end. Thinking I may has slipped a tooth in the steering box and its putting a strain on the pump. Any ideas before I start ripping things apart?
 
Open the hood. The whine is probably the pump is low on fluid . All of a sudden? Has anyone else driven the car and knocked it out of alignment?
 
Fluid level is fine and I am the only driver. Hit nothing, changed nothing, just got in the car went for a ride to the local car show and things are not right. Have NO idea what happened but steering is definitely off!
 
The steering gear doesn't just skip a tooth. It's a recirculating ball and sector worm gear. I would guess something is about to fall off, like the pitman arm or something. Park it / fix it! It's a pretty simple car to diagnose. Of course I'm assuming you had it all checked out, and aligned by someone qualified after replacing parts.
 
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I've seen this one time (in my life) and one time only and it was a freak failure. The year was 1981 and I was going to auto tech school. We were allowed to work on cars owned by John Q. Public.
A guy had his car towed to the school one Monday Morning for us students to fix. I remember (for some reason) that this was a full-sized GM car. I suspect your Chevelle probably uses the same gear box.
Anyway, at church parking lot the previous day, his steering gear had a a catastrophic failure. The end of his steering gear blew out the side and his steering wheel quickly jerked as far left (or right, don't remember) and he couldn't hold it.
The steering gear assembly was literally in several pieces. We fixed it by putting on a junk yard donor part.
Just one of those freak failures that was lucky to happen in a church parking lot and not traveling down the highway at 60 mph.
Not to scare you or anything and the odds of this happening are nil, just thought I'd pass this on.
 
Did something come loose on the front end parts? Ball joint not fully seated? Upper control arm spacer pop out? It should be obvious.
 
Noisy PS pump and suddenly off kilter steering wheel seems to point to the steering box. If it were mine I`d change both. OP have you had someone turn the steering wheel left and right while listening and watching the steering components?
 
Originally Posted by Dinoburner
OP have you had someone turn the steering wheel left and right while listening and watching the steering components?


Definitely the first step here.
 
Just going to say that if it is a steering box failure, either send your to, or get a replacement from Turn One Steering, https://www.turnone-steering.com/. They make most of the boxes for NASCAR and will build it to any ratio you want. They also have an adapter you can put on your pump to change the power assist with the turn of a knob.
 
Unfortunately that seems to be lacking where I live. Lots of guys say they specialize in older cars but charge mega $ and come up short. Too many times I've been sent home after the repair has allegedly been done only to find it hasn't! Still paid
 
Looks like I will need a new steering box and pump (due to my usage of Lucas additive) any recommendations? 1970 Chevelle SS 396
 
I was thinking of trying some Lucas Power Steering Stop Leak as it is supposed to address some of my issues. Already added the Lucas fluid with conditioners and it seemed to help awhile back. Any ideas or opinions?
 
Originally Posted by 007
I was thinking of trying some Lucas Power Steering Stop Leak as it is supposed to address some of my issues. Already added the Lucas fluid with conditioners and it seemed to help awhile back. Any ideas or opinions?

Yes, try and find someone that knows what they are doing, which would be safer, and cheaper than what you are doing.
 
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