rack and pinion

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rack and pinion

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Chevrolet Forum >> Past Vehicles >> Cavalier >> rack and pinion

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rack and pinion - 10/2/2007 10:11:15 PM

02blue1

Posts: 15
Joined: 10/19/2006
Status: offline

2002 calalier Ls
60,000 miles

having trouble with turning. seems to feel like something pushing against steering when going into turns. it turns but the faster you're going the harder it seems. i have new struts on, new bearing plates, and aligned. put new struts on about 4 months ago and steering was fine then but now tight. power steering fluid is fine but is pretty dirty. no leaks from rack or pump, no noise from pump either. i was told by the guy that aligned the car that cavaliers were notorious for rack and pinion problems. anyone know anything about this. the car drives perfectly fine besides being tight into turns. almost feels like no power assist and trying to get in and out of parking spaces is a real pain in the A$$, it's really tight trying to spin that steering wheel around! i've checked the bearing plates to the struts and they don't seem to be binding up. i did notice they are tight though but can still be turned by hand. i just assume they're going to have some drag on them because of the tension of the coil spring pushing against them.

i'm going to flush and replace the steering fluid and bleed the system and see what happens. if that doesn't help i will probly consider replacing the power steering lines. i have a dakota that for the last month was giving me all kinds of steering problems. went through 3 steering pumps thinking they were defective, new belt, alignments, last thing i did was change the steering lines and "poof" it's fine now!

all front end components seem to be fine as well. ball joints, tie rods all ok. i'm going to needle grease the ball joints and see if it helps as well.