Hello guys, my first post here but i've been hanging around the forums for a while now

I have a problem with the steering in my car, it is a Sierra ghia 2.0i DOHC with PAS (2.9 turns) and it seems to be a known issue that the sierra have a problematic steering, self centering and such...
The car has GAZ gold coilovers installed, with eccentric top mounts, Adjustable traction control arms and compression struts, so the steering should be flawless, but its still feels kinda numb.. i have even tried to cancel the Power steering pump so im currently running on 2.9 turns rack with no power steering fluid, but that just impossible to drive, steering is hard as a rock.

im kind of clueless right now, i really want to fix this vague steering and i dont know how, are all sierras with 2.9 PAS have vague steering no matter what you do to them?

Thanks for reading and hopefully for helping me fix this

 

first things first, have you set the suspension geometry and angles up correctly?

everything is adjustable and the self centring won't work if the compression struts are set up wrong

i also found that when i fitted a 2wd arb to my 4wd car the steering was very very nervous in a straight line but fantastic around corners

 

Hey guys,
I must have explained myself wrong, the problem in my car is while drifting or making fast steering moves from one side to another,
For example, if i want to change direction, while drifting, the steering wheel should change direction by itself, in reality its not only stoping in place, if i try to help it turn i feel like the steering pump isnt responsing or worse i feel the oil going the wrong way , is there any chance that the pump of the 8v is crap that it needs to be changed.?

 

did you put the pipes on the rack back into the right holes, they can go either/or so that would be the first place to check

 

Seems like you're running excessive castor. Is the car really low?

 

Sorry didnt read about the top mounts. I'd definitely reduce caster if everything's allright with the steering itself.

 

reducing caster will not make the problem worse?
logically the more caster you have the more the steering will want to self center
the car isnt that low.. i dont know the exact figures but there's about 30-40mm space between the wheel and the wheel arch.

 

do you want the steering to be going sideways when you let go or self centre?

2 different things and 2 totally different settings and front end grip will be compromised or gained depending on what you are wishing to achive

put the front wheels as far forward as you can, adjust the tca's to make them sit as far out as possible and put the top mounts as far back as you can so that you are as far out as you can possibly be with the settings from standard and see how things go from there

just make sure both sides are adjusted equally

 

Dojj, when you are drifting , the center of steering is always changing depending on the angle of drift, the problem isnt in the caster as i gave as much as i could, and still it was the same, the problem isnt in the allinment as the problem is fixed now that i canceled the pump, now that i have no power steering the steering is correcting itself correctlingly, as asked before, do all of you run the stock 8v engine pump.?

 

the same pump is also fitted to the 24V engine so the only thing i can think it could be is that you are overheating the fluid somehow?
use a longer run of pipe on the return and see if this cools the fluid down better as it may be frothing up

 

After a bit of fiddling the steering feels very good now, the setup i ran was very bad..
Im having another issue now, the Compression strut is touching the wheel in full lock (which will be even a bigger problem if i wish to reach more lock)
is it recommended to put spacers on the wheels?
I was thinking of these spacers: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ford-20mm-Wh...ht_1308wt_1396

Please let me know if i broke the rules by placing the link and ill remove it

If its too dangerous to drive with spacers then i guess i have to find different rims with more offset

 

i bought mine from burton power but they seem to be the same sort of price, as long as they include the longer studs

the issue you will have then is that the centre line of the wheel won't be the centreline of where it was designed to be

so you may run into more problems than you solve

by moving the offset of the wheel further out will be the same as fitting the spacers so you really would need to fit the spacers as well as changing the offset to keep everything where it was BUT give you more space

at least thats how i see it

 

I really dont have an option :/ currently im taking u-turns a bit wide and slow so i wont pop a tire, or break the compression strut, but since its my daily car i need to fix this asap, i was also looking for rims with offset 0 (currently my offset is 28) but its really hard to find them here, might be even impossible to find them here :/

 

I'm pretty sure there is a user here who is a memeber of tramp drift, or there may be several members here, who can provide you with a solution

 

I thought numb and vague steering normal for old fords