Steering weight

[Jonathan Wolff <jon@domain.elided>]

Hi all,

Just got the 164 Cloverleaf back from the garage, having had the front
wishbones, rear control arms and steering rack replaced.  Also it has a new
pair of P-Zeros on the front, to replace the ones which had worn heavily on
the inside shoulders and were toast in about 9000 miles, and of course the
geometry has all been checked and adjusted.

I expected the car to feel like a revelation, and for sure plenty of the
clonks and the squirming under braking seem to have gone.  In fact the
suspension generally seems more composed, being noticeably less jiggly and
crashy even in Sport mode.  Marvellous!

Just one thing, I can't confidently use this new found lease of life,
because the steering has become incredibly light.  It wasn't particularly
heavy before, but it had a decent amount of feel.  Admittedly I've been
driving my new purchase, an Integrale, while it was being worked on, so
maybe I've forgotten what it was like, but I'm sure it wasn't like that.

So, how light should a '94 164 Cloverleaf's steering be?  Was it heavy
before because the bushes were all shot and the geometry was all wrong, or
is something wrong now?  One thing that occurred to me was that they might
have fitted a rack from a lesser model - can I check this?  The new rack
gives about 3.25 turns lock to lock by my estimate, but I can't remember
what the old one was, nor can I find the correct figure anywhere to hand.

Any help would be appreciated...

Jonathan.

- -- 
Jonathan Wolff <jon@domain.elided>
Programmer
Argonaut Software Ltd.

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