Whats up everyone. Im new coming back to the site. No computer. So i have a 96' accord. The other day i jumped in and found that out of no where ive got a large amount of play in my steering wheel. Wheels straight, the steering wheel slops back and forth from 11 oclock ta 1 oclock in the drive way. It still responds when driving but sometimes when turning you can feel the play as well. The power steering was ripped out about 5 yrs ago. The lines were capped at the time. Any ideas on what could cause this??? I checked all the connections already. Their tight. Intermidiate axel maybe?
Thanks in advance.

 

What do you mean by intermediate axle?

Look for looseness in the steering tie rods. Either the outboard balljoints on the tierods, or the inboard ones inside the rubber boots. Check that the whole rack itself is mounted properly.

Possibly any of the other balljoints? Other control-arm pivot bushings? That stuff seems likely to give real strange response when driving, but ???

There are U-joints near the bottom of the steering column, where it goes through the firewall. Probably covered by some kind of shroud, but check whether those are coming apart.

 

I thought the intermidiate axel was what they call the piece that the steering linkage conects to just after going through the firewall. The same piece the tie rods connect to.

But yeah i did notice that the ball joints at the outer side of the tie rods look pretty worn. The inner side of the driverside tie rod, where it connects, that rubber boot you mentioned is shredded all the way around. Thats way i was curious about that piece (what i called the intermediate axel).

None of the bushings or balljoints have every been changed on this car. Most of them look worn. Should i start there? If so do i do rubber or poly? Im thinkin about putting the car on cans down the road when i got cash.

And with me rippin out the power steering, are there any precautions i should take? Its been out for some time. Is there an after market steering setup i should look into?

 

I guess first you want to figure out where all the looseness is coming from. Gotta rule out the tie-rod balljoints because if they come all the way apart when you're driving that's big trouble.

If the problem is internals inside the steering gearbox assembly ("rack") then you might just want to get a rebuilt rack. I never have looked for a complete manual steering rack so don't know what to tell you there.