Re: Two Milano Questions (Steering Play)

["Herbert Neily" <neily@domain.elided>]

Lyndon Martin wrote:
<Second question, at speed I am noticing quite a lot of play in my
<steering around the straight ahead position. There is also some
<vibration which I am putting down to wheel balance.  Any thoughts on
<likely cause of the play?

  I had the same problem with my GTV6.  Several people suggested that the 4
bolts, that secure the steering rack to the front crossmember, were loose.
Sure enough, tightening the bolts completely removed the steering play.  I
was surprised by just how little the loose steering rack had to move (maybe
1/16 inch or less) to yield so much steering play.  Evidently, it is common
for these bolts to loosen over time.
   These four bolts have 13mm heads.  At least three of the bolts are a bit
difficult to get a wrench on - the driver's side front bolt in particular.
That bolt is partly hidden by a sheet metal heat shield that, unfortunately,
is held in place by the subject bolt - so, you can't move the heat shield
out of the way to tighten the bolt.  I did find that (on the GTV6, at least)
the top of the heat shield is mounted to the inside of the wheel well by a
10mm (I think) bolt that can be removed to allow the shield to be bent a bit
for marginally better access.  Even doing that leaves you with little
vertical clearance between the top of the bolt head and the lower edge of
the engine block.  After much experimentation, I finally found that
Craftsman 1/4-inch-drive wrench and a matching 13mm socket with integral
universal joint was the combination that possessed the needed total depth
(not too much, not too little) and that allowed for the necessary skewing of
the wrench at the offending heat shield.
   While a bit of a PITA, the effort was well worth it in terms of greatly
improved steering precision.
Bert Neily
Raleigh, NC
'84 GTV6
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