[NeilZ]

I have a 71 Lemans that has a 70 front clip (big chrome bumper) that may have
been wrecked - don't know the history, but no evident frame/body damage. I had an alignment and the guy said he couldn't do the driver side right because there was not enough adjustment. At the time, I didn't know enough to ask many questions but now I know a lot more.

Right side is +2.0 caster / -0.5 camber and handles properly. Alignment guy left the alignment screwed on the left side +3.25 caster / -1.75 camber so I figured that was the under steer problem. Using a Bubble Alignment tool ($20), a lot of adjustments/drives, I now have +2.0 caster / -0.5 camber on both sides. Don't know about toe in but the alignment sheet was in specs to start with.

Still have under steer - tun left and it won't straighten up on its own. Only other things I noticed were :
1. when jacking front end dead center, the driver side hangs about an inch
plus lower because when I just get the R side jack in the L side requires more
pumps to clear the stand.
2. When in park, the steering wheel rotating to left is really easy but to the
right requires noticeable more effort.

Just been living wih it. Any ideas ? PS pump cause this ?

Thanks

[JLMounce]

Are you referring to understeer as a loss of traction in a left hand turn by the front tires, or are you talking about the car wanting to center itself after a turn? It sounds like you're talking about the latter, but you specifically state understeer which is the former.

If you're talking about centering of the steering wheel after you've completed a turn, there's various factors that can be at play here. First is caster. The more positive caster you put into the steering, the more positively it will want to center itself out of a corner. For most street cars, the alignment includes additional caster on the right side wheel to help steer the car straight on roads with a crown. This is known as a road crown alignment. Your previous alignment was backwards of what it needed to be until you worked on it yourself. Having an even split on the alignment is preferable for vehicle handling, but you may find that it wants to track right on surface streets that have a road crown.

With 2* of positive caster on both side, there's some, but not a lot of caster induced natural centering occurring.

The next areas to look at are the steering components itself. Bound up or sticky tie rod ends or drag link components, worn out steering gear, even worn out bearings in the steering column. Anything that would produce some sort of bind or friction can contribute to the wheel not wanting to center itself. I will say that when my Firebird started doing that out of the blue, it was the first indication that my steering gear needed replacing.

The jacking issue you state likely stems from the cross weight of the car. These cars favor their weight to the passenger side because of where the battery and hvac systems are located in the car. Some models also move the engine slightly to the right side as well. That shows up in cross weight difference front and rear which can effect how the car moves, especially with the flimsy factory frame in a 71 A-Body.

In regards to the fact that steering effort to the right is much harder than steering effort to the left, this is a clue that there's something binding when moving the system to the right. The fact that it's easy to turn left would be why the wheel recenter's itself when turning right and the extra effort turning right is why the wheel won't recenter itself after turning left.

Has the car every been restored or had maintenance done on it's steering and front suspension systems?

[NeilZ]

Jason I appreciate you taking the time to break my problem down into individual problem/solutions. I do mean steering wheel doesn't return to center when a left turn is made. The front and rear end have been completely rebuilt - ball joints, tie rods, sway bars, front disk brake it, upper/lower rear links, all springs. The guy that had it before me (<2011) had Eibach drop springs that were cut so I eliminated that issue with 2" drop spindles and drop springs but even that with correcting camber/caster made no difference. I did buy a used floor shift column (tight bearings) and removed 3 tree column but again no difference.

Only things left are PS pump and or steering gear box. Makes perfect sense now when you said with the steering wheel being harder to spin right that this is the reason steering wheel doesn't return to center. I would guess PS pump pressure may be the issue rather than gear box, but I will read up on both.

Thanks I appreciate the input Jason.

[JLMounce]

I would suspect the gear box before the pump. That said, if both are original, it may simply be time for both.

I did a Lee Power Steering pump last year and that thing rocks. Very consistent and I no longer have any frothing or heat related issues. Highly recommended upgrade from a generic parts store remanufactured unit. I'd probably go with the Borgeson gear. I hear really good things about those at their price point.