I've been fixing up my '79 Coupe DeVille over the last few months.

The car had been out of service since 1999 so it needed quite a bit of work to get it back up and running again.

Now for the 2 remaining problems;

1; the car pulls to the right.
It's done this since day one on the old dry rotted tyres, but since I've had it's alignment done and I installed a set of new 18" wheels and tyres. Yet it still pulls to the right hand side (not as bad as before, but it still does it).
I can't let it roll on the highway because it'll go to the RH side, it constantly needs to be corrected.
Alignment has been done to the factory specs.
What could be the problem? I really don't know.....?!?!?

2; the power steering requires a slightly higher steering effort when turning to the left.
When turning to the right it goes a little lighter/easier.
I was thinking maybe this has something to to with very old (bad) Power Steering fluid?!?!

Or am I looking in the wrong direction and are the 2 things connected?!?:confused:
The whole car has been inspected and tested and nothing looks out of the ordinary.
There are no (visible) signs of any collision repairs.

WHAT AM I MISSING!?!?

Car pulls:
Check air pressure, check for tire tread irregularities (broken belts, screwed up tread, etc), and the most common, alignment hosed. Also look for bent rims. Are brakes dragging? Easy test on that, get up to speed (if it is safe) in an area where no cars are at, coast to a stop with no application of brakes, look for a warm brake.

Power Steering:
If fluid is very old, a good idea would be to use something to suck the fluid out, and replace with Amsoil or other synthetic as long as it is rated for power steering (Amsoil is, not sure on the rest), drive it for a few miles and repeat 3x min (get 2 quarts of fluid, use around 1.5 qts and save the rest for topping off later.

Did you put on the 18" wheels before or after you aligned it? If the tire height changes you need to realign. Look at the tires for abnormal wear. Look for wheels leaning (if they both lean to the same side, the car will push to that side too), look for toe off.

With that age, the drag link is probably shot, but a good alignment shop should have caught that for sure.

Look for the upper control arm bushings being shot, or loose upper control arm bolts.

Look for the REAR axle for not being straight too. If you must string the car do so. Get 4 jackstands and line a string around them, and then measure from the string to the front of the tire to the back all the way around. I'll see if I can write up something on it. Stringing a car is fantastic to do to see how straight your car is.

Find an alignment shop that cares about their work. The one you have doesn't. Either they are too lazy to adjust caster or too stupid to check for worn out parts like upper bushings.

If the alignment shop won't let me in there with them as they do the alignment, I find another shop. I talk to the tech and see how much they know and watch what they are doing.

I HIGHLY recommend go to your fav autoparts store and pick up 2 packages of alignment shims. I had them handy and it allowed the guy to dial in much tighter, as they don't do many cars like ours anymore, so they didn't have a good selection and have to comprimise a good alignment for one they can actually do.

This package has down to 1/64" of an inch shims which is very helpful in dialing in a good alignment.

I spec'd mine for 0 camber, 4.5 caster (4.7 on the right I think), 0 toe and have been very happy with it. He got pretty darn close. I still think I have something worn in the suspension that I see only in hard corners. He couldn't catch it on the rack, but didn't get in and pry around either.

im sorry but i can't stand when customers stand over me when i align their car. the main reason is because EVERYBODY thinks they are a mechanic and know how to do things better than the person getting paid to ACTUALLY work on the car. don't get me wrong, i am very happy to take the printout to the customer and fully explain everything and what i did and what this or that does. if they are really concerned i will drive WITH them. but just dont STARE at me.... might as well some peanuts or popcorn at me. doing what i do for as long as i have been doing it, think i speak for alot of people in this career when i say( if that guy knows better he can do it himself). that is the sort of attitude i take. i apologize again but its 2007 almost, and the fact that mechanics are still looked down upon makes me want to POP!:rant2:


btw sorry for the long post

Most of the time the mechs are cool, I am into cars probably more than they are. I don't think I have ever had a mech not be cool about it.

If I hadn't been in the bay when they did my FW I would have got a crap alignment because they didn't even have enough shims to be accurate.

I had also been messing with it on my own and had the nuts loosened so his life was MUCH easier too. He was quite happy on that. Some of those bolts can get to be a pain if they haven't been loosened in 5 years.

It isn't like I am over the shoulder telling them how to do it. If I had to do that I wouldn't be there letting them touch my ride at all.

Back in 1990 I took the ASE pretest (I was in the military, it was free to take) and I did a 70% not studying at all, not even preparing a thing for it, and that was based on the knowledge I knew just from my own reading and experience. That didn't include the bodywork side, I didn't try that part at all. I was surprised at the detail of the questions. Probably should have got my ASE just to do it, but I had no reason to, so I didn't bother.

I guess my point is, I am coming to a mechanic to do what I am asking them to do. If they are having a problem with me asking them to do it right or MY WAY, it IS my money, then that is what I expect. I am not paying the shop to do a job that I want their own way unless I ask them to. I have a real problem with that. And if the shop has a problem with it, then they shouldn't be in business.

I don't come to a shop unless there is some reason I can't do it myself (sorry, I don't have my own alignment rack, wish I did, one of these days I will get the caster/camber gauges I want, I already am more accurate at toe than a rack anyway at home). I do 99% of my own work. I have taken my cars to alignment shops maybe 4 times in my life (you are talking nearly 600K miles of my own driving, not including my other cars that my wife drives). And the first was the worst (toasted the tires in 10K because I let them do "stock" alignment), next argued with me, but did what I asked, and it worked out well. The next 2 were cool with me there and did exactly what I asked, and we were able to talk and get input on why I wanted it that way, again, I was happy with the alignment (one was the Ford dealer my Uncle was Service Manager at). So it worked out well, very well. The last was the local shop on the corner. They had never seen a Fleetwood with a LT1 before...

When it comes to an alignment, I spec it, not the "book" that they use (if they even do). I have only had 1 mech argue with me on it. Giving me the crap line like we won't warranty the tires if you burn them up, like they would anyway. That was 20 years ago, I haven't run across any like that since. I also never went back and let anyone I know what happened, they also now won't go there.

Okay guys thanks for the help so far..

I did the alignment before I mounted the new wheels because I didn't want to burn up the wheels with the bad alignment it had before.
Tire pressure is okay.
The wheels were very close to brand new when I bought them (previous owner used them for a week) and visual and manual inspection revealed no irregularities.
No leaning wheels visible (had an '80 Buick Century once where it was very visible!)
Brakes function properly. It brakes in a good straight line.
I've driven the car a mere 30 to 40 miles or so.
The car has been tested to comply with the road safety regulations and a good friend of mine did all the work on it, so I don't think there are some parts that are completely toast.
Maybe some wear but nothing really abnormal.
PS oil probably is very, very old so I will replace this soon. I'm also thinking about adding the LUCAS PS additive.

NODIH what do you mean by "check for alignment hosed"?!?

And I am very interested in the string method! If you could get me some better details I'd appreciate it!

erik

Power Steering:
If fluid is very old, a good idea would be to use something to suck the fluid out, and replace with Amsoil or other synthetic as long as it is rated for power steering (Amsoil is, not sure on the rest), drive it for a few miles and repeat 3x min (get 2 quarts of fluid, use around 1.5 qts and save the rest for topping off later.

AMSOIL makes many products. To the best of my knowledge, the only one suitable for use in power steering units is actually an ATF:
AMSOIL ATF (http://www.c66racing-synthetics.com/Product%20Bulletins/ATFPB.htm)
:cheers:

Well, I replaced the old PS oil. Even added some special oil to loosen up sticky valves and everything but it still doesn't make a difference.

I intend to have it realigned by another shop just for good measure.....
However I do personally think it might have something to do with the steering box itself.
Like I said it needs higher effort to steer to the left versus the right.
I also need to constantly steer a little to the left to keep the car going in a straight line instead of making a long right turn.

Has anyone ever experienced similar problems with his/her steering box??!??!


erik

I might be completely wrong on this but won't the car pull to one side if one of the bearings is worn?

Hi 90brougham350

That's true, but I've had all my bearings checked and the brakes are okay. The car had a big maintenance inspection followed by a safety inspection last month to get it licensed and registered here for the first time.
it's was imported to Europe from Minnesota last year, and over here I can't just slap a plate on a car and drive. The DMV won't register it without a thourough safety check.

erik

Any bearing wear severe enough to cause pulling would likely land up in a wheel flying off after a while.

Yikes!