Steering Question

[bj1126]

Long story but I recently re-acquired my 1987 Turbo T out of where it was being stored and am wanting to get it fixed up. The steering on it is very loose and I have a mechanic looking at it right now. He says I need a new pitman arm to tighten the steering up and align the wheels. I'm having great difficulty locating one though.

From reading another thread here I found on Google though it sounds like that might not be the root cause but that it's a pretty common problem on the cars. Is the mechanic just not knowledgeable about the car and making a faulty assumption? The steering is loose but workable for now should I hold off and investigate it some more before I go swapping parts that don't need to be swapped? Also are there any good mechanics in South Florida that you folks can recommend to do the work?

Thanks in advance!

 

[turbo87regal]

The reason you cant find a pitman arm is because it's a solid piece of metal and will never go bad

You should probably take the car to another mechanic because it sounds like the one you took it to is not too familiar with these cars

If you have very loose steering its most likely caused by a bad rag joint (It's located under the plastic cover between the steering shaft and the steering box) but it could also be a loose center link, idler arm or maybe a loose steering box.

Dont forget to check the control arm bushings as the ones on the right side get melted form the heat from the downpipe

 

[novaderrik]

if the pitman arm is bad-which it probably isnt- you should be able to find one on any of the millions of 78-88 G bodies with power steering that currently are taking up space in junkyards across the country just waiting for some of their parts to be useful once again.

 

[bj1126]

Thanks for the input! I've told him to hold off on that until I get a chance to inspect the car and research it further. The front end is in really rough shape. I think the chassis has like 200k miles on it, only about 30k on the current engine though, and no idea when the last time any of it was serviced. The right front shock has completely gone out and I believe some of the steering linkage was bent, don't remember which pieces exactly. It was hit in the right front a while back and I'm thinking some of the stuff wasn't checked out as thoroughly as it should have. I wouldn't be shocked if the pitman arm really was bent or broken in someway.

The car is in Orlando and I'm in Ft. Lauderdale. I go up there next weekend to get it. I'll try to get some pictures then to post.