Anyone else have a problem with how sloppy their steering gearboxes seem to be? I initially bought my car and thought it was ruined so i bought a rebuilt one. I have no joke, 1 1/3" slop in the steering wheel. If you have any advice or any alternative gearbox's that will work, let us all know.

 

Mine is super tight, and I have the z28 fast ratio box. Idk what to do in your situation though.

 

This all has nothing at all to do with the design of the gearbox. Nothing at all wrong with them. you ned to determine where the slop is. Is it in the box, the steering shaft, the rag joint, steering linkage ect. Could be a bunch of different things

 

A simple backlash adjustment can do wonders to sloppy steering gears. Don't blame the box if it's not adjusted properly.

 

Thanks for the fast response guys. The only thing is that I've adjusted the screw with the two nuts on it on top. That's not the problem. Also, I noticed that the slop is at the top (Input side) of the gearbox, where the steering column goes in. I noticed that the box that it came in said there would be a small amount of slop for pitman arm feedback built in.

 

Who did the "rebuild"? Third gens, had really good road feel in thier steering and were really tight feeling in the IROCs. Sounds like you got a chinese rebuild.

 

like others have implied, something else is wrong... generally that steering box design has less slop and better road feel (and more durable) than a rack and pinion, if you have that kind of thing going on it's usually in the linkage somewhere.

the preload adjustment on the top of the box can be used to tighten things up a little bit, but don't screw w it too much, you can cause it to bind or have other problems

 

The input plug should always be adjusted first before dickering with the pitman adjustment bolt on top. Think about how it works: if the rack has play back and forth, how can tightening the engagement between the rack and the pitman do anything favorable?