Im having a problem with my steering that is driving me nuts trying to figure it out, and causing me to be leary of driving my car. this just started in the past week. at 30mph or below. the steering seams fine other than the fact I think the alignment may be a bit off because the wheel has to be turned a bit to go straight. wierd thing with that is you can set the steering wheel where ever you want it and that is the direction the car will go with hands off the wheel. 30mph and up. the car is very floaty. it wants to track all over the place. the steering is very firm and responsive at all speeds which causes the biggest problem with all of this. Im constantly fighting the car to keep it straight. after only 4 miles of driving my arm hurts a little from all the back and forth movement and constant fighting to keep the car straight. any thing causes the car to want to go its own way. a rock,ruts in the road,strong wind, any thing. here is what I know. good: new gear box(replaced trying to fix this problem 2 days ago) all steering components replace 6mo's ago and are good, when replacing the gear box I moved the linkage side to side to check for play just to be sure every thing was still ok. bad: all springs are sagged, alignment questionable. can some one plase give me an idea of what is going on here? Im realy leary of driving it like this.

Start with an alignment. Don't use the stock specs; instead get them to set it to about -.5/-1.0 negative camber and about +3/+3.5 positive caster (those are left/right) and about .01" inward toe.

Check the rubber steering coupler ("rag joint") where the column bolts to the gear.

Check for play in the wheel bearings.

Make sure your tires are good.

Check your Panhard bar in the rear; make sure it's not bent or loose.

The lack of return to center has me thinking that the problem is either steering box or idler arm realted, because those are the two area that govern return to center. Usually the idler arm uses a rubber bushing as sort of a coiled sring to return the wheel to center. I've had cheap new ones lack the ability to do this properly. Another possibility is if the lash in the gearbox is wrong. If the lash screw is too tight it can reduce the ability of the box to return it to center. If you got a reman box it may haev been setup improperly. I'd losen the lcoknut and back the screw off in 1/4 turn increments and see if the return to center improves.

The squirrley handling is most likely a poor alignment. The previously suggested specs were excellent. I've also seen toe expressed in inches, so if they ask for that go with 1/16" toe-in.

Other worn suspension components can add to the problem too. How many miles are on the car?

got an alignment today. the specs they set it to are as follows.
L/R
camber -0.1/1.0
caster 3.7/4.2
toe 0.00/0.00
cross camber -1.1
cross caster -0.5
total toe 0.01
set back 0.04
it's seems quite a bit better. steering returns to center and the steering wheel moves freely.
it still is a bit floaty, but not as bad as it was.
the car has almost 194,000 miles on it.
all steering components are 6-7mo's old or newer.
Im wondering how much would worn bushings on the sway bar and stuff like that effect handling? I know the sway bar bushings are pretty torn up and starting to fall apart(one has a chunk missing from it). only bushings Ive replaced since I got the car where the sway bar end links.

The swap bar bushings really don't do a whole lot as far as the symptoms you described. However, upper strut mounts, control arm bushings, and other worn components could easily cause problems like that. My advice is to rebuild the entire suspension, because with nearly 200,000 on the clock it's overdue.

funny you say that. from what I can tell the strut mount bearing is bad on the drivers side. I get a pop/bump from that side when turning very sharply and it can not be associated to any thing else that would cause that.
aside from shocks, springs,strut mount and bushings what else is there that would need replaced?

Lower ball joints, if you haven't done them already. My friend had one fail today on his car in my driveway. Fortunately we were able to get the car into the garage and fix the problem. If that had happened at highway speed he could have been killed.

replaced them when all the steering components were replaced.
Im glad to. they were a pain in the a$$ to replace with that crapy press from autozone.

Well for one your alignment sucks!!

There should be no cross camber. Your right side has a positive degree of camber while the left side is almost at dead 0. Who did your alignment?? Get that straight. It should have a slight pull to the right. Cross caster is ok. Caster always pulls to the more negative. So that counters the road crown. Was the alignment done with someone sitting in the drivers seat?

Sounds like your upper strut mount is binding. Does the steering wheel return all the way to dead center after a turn? It definitely sounds like upper strut mounts. Get the moog replacements. Spohn offers them.

He's right about the alignment settings too. I didn't really look at them before. Caster is what makes the steering wheel track straight and resist wandering. Consequently, it is fine to have different settings on each side to account for road crown on the highway, as mentioned.

Camber and toe should be identical for both sides. About -1 degree is where you want to be for camber, while toe should be about 1/16" in.

Is it possible that they couldn't align the car properly? If so, that's a sign of something worn or incorrectly installed in the suspension.

Yes. But our cars come with quite a bit of caster and camber adjustment. Even if that were the case the tech could have pulled one side to match the other. Its really not rocket science.

He could check the SAI angle (steering axis inclination) to see if there are any bent components. But everything alignment wise needs to be close to being in.

The reason I asked if they had someone sit in the drivers seat is because that is the only reason the camber would show like it is. The left side would go pos. and the right side would become more neg. when weight is added to the d-side. But I'm not sure it would be that drastic. And even if thats what they did, why didn't they print the summary with the weight in the car and not after?

nope, no one was in the car when the alignment was done, or the readings were taken. I was standing right there. the guy connected the stuff to the wheels turned the computer on programed in what car it was for. he then said every thing is in the green except toe in on the pas side wheel. he then adjusted a tierod, and made the print out for me. what I did find odd was that he then took the car for a short drive then came back and tightned up the tierod adjusting sleves.

befor I forget, no it doesnt return completly to center after a turn, but it isnt off enough to give much thought to it.

OK,
Well go back and tell that idiot that a full degree of cross camber is NOT acceptable. Have him set both sides to about -.5 degree or a full -1.0 if possible. And make sure both side are the same. Sounds like he was too lazy to adjust the camber. I literally takes 5 seconds to push the strut tower down!

And while your at it, replace those strut mounts. Then go back and make them do it all over again.

It's stories like this that make me glad I learned how to do my own alignment at home. It may take a bit of trial and error to get the best setup (one that is better than stock, but not offensive to drive on the street), but at least I know what I did was right.

I had my car ('67 Mustang) aligned when I was running coil spring isolators that were too tall, making it impossible to properly adjust the camber. Obviously the car handled like crap. I read a great book on chassis setup by Herb Adams, and performed my own alignment after I'd replaced the too tall isolators with stock parts. It's like driving a different car. I am glad I did this, because it's given me the confidence to do alignments on my other cars, all with excellent results.