No offense meant to those who are prostitutes or support that fine profession.
Furthermore, I honestly do not know exactly how 'loose' a ghetto prostitute is, but believe me, if you took hold of my wheel, you might think the same.
Now on to my problem... I have noticed a substantial deterioration in the tightness of my steering wheel lately. I had a few people at the Texas rally this weekend look at with not much help. We pulled the lower plastic cowel and made sure the 4 big bolts were tight (they were) and observed that all the sloppy play is around the first knuckle (I guess around the tilt wheel portion).
I have about 1/2 in play in all directions, and that adds up to a lot of travel if you start at the 'sloppy' bottom and move to the 'sloppy' top.
You guys have any idea of what I'm up against here? My Nissan buddy thinks it will require a lot of steering column work to get at 4 inverted torx screws that need tightening and a bunch of 'uncommon' tools needed before you expose them. But it is just us thinking out loud....
I also need to replace the Cruise stalk, so this might be a good time for that also?
If the problem gets fixed, I will post a thread about "My steering is tighter than an 18 year old virgin" or somesuch...
------------------ If life gives you lemons, squeeze the juice into a water pistol and squirt it into other peoples eyes.
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07:02 PM
PFF
System Bot
Master_Sushi Member
Posts: 1873 From: Oakville, ON Registered: Apr 2000
I have the same problem with my steering wheel, i think its in the tilt mechanism. i did a search and found that someone else once had this problem and a reply was to look in the ogree's cave. go down to interior and click on steering wheel
from there another link takes you to another site, click articles. you should see where to go from there.
im just waiting for a nice warm day and some extra time to perform the operation on my baby. Grrr Cold Days with no garage suck!!
GoodLuck! SHarper
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07:29 PM
PBJ Member
Posts: 4167 From: London, On., Canada Registered: Jan 2001
I could be wrong but I thing there is only 2 torks bolts, one on each side??? I've done this twice and yes you describe the exact senerio. The worst part is removing the column lock plate and yes a simple special spring compressor for this is needed to easily remove and reinstall it. There was a pretty funny thread recently about this posted by Adrift in which one member shamefully admitted he could remove the ring doing some kind of gymnastic routine while sitting in the drivers seat. I'm still waiting for pics of this cause even reading about it made me ROFLMFAO! Its not hard to do-just be extra careful to take notes of in what order you take stuff out as it can be kinda confusing once you get in there. Its really not that hard though once that damn retaining clip/spring is off. Search for that post and of course ogre's cave is always helpful.
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08:29 PM
MaxDaemon Member
Posts: 933 From: East Wenatchee, WA Registered: Feb 2002
Once upon a time, back when the world was new and I was very new to Fieros, I had that same thing happen. I actually found THE ONLY GUY IN TOWN WHO KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT IT and he took it apart and fixed it. It took him about two hours and cost me about $125 as I remember. So .. I don't know anything about the actual physical layout of what happens in there, but he told me he had to tighten the four bolts down deep inside the steering column...
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11:18 PM
LT1 Chop Top Member
Posts: 645 From: San Antonio, Texas, USA Registered: Mar 2001
steering columns and especialy tilt columns should be left to experianced shade tree or a cert. pro!!!!!!there tough but not to bad but if youre not very mech inclined .....beware!
------------------ fun is rowin throo my 5-speed
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11:23 PM
Mar 5th, 2002
Wade87GT Member
Posts: 421 From: Niceville, FL. USA Registered: Nov 1999
I had the same problem. I took my car to a local shop and they said it was a common GM problem. For a few bills and a couple of hours now it's better than it was 150,000 miles ago.
Blakeinspace, Go to http://www.angelfire.com/biz/fierosails/info.html. Scroll down to illustrated steering column removal/tightening. It will tell you how to do it. Most of us don't take it all the way apart. Just disassemble far enough to see 3 out of 4 bolts. Good luck. I don't know why that link won't work, maybe you can't link to angelfire pages. It's called 'Fiero Secrets', if you can find it in a search. It shows step by step -illustrated, instructions on the dissasembly of the column. You do not have to take the column out, as it is described in the article. The loose str wheel is real common, both my Fiero and Jeep Cherokee have suffered this malady. Just locktite the torx screws back in, good as new. Here are the screws that are causing the problem plucked from that page "like ticks off a hound dog")
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 03-05-2002).]
And I thought blake was just drunk or high while he was crusing down the road in Austin!! ha ha My bad ! real steering prob. hummmmm I wonder if cookie crumbs got stuck in there and roted the greese away????
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09:29 AM
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System Bot
FieroJoe Member
Posts: 2314 From: Southfield, MI Registered: Nov 2000
thanks for the link, it will work if you remove the '.' from the end of the url.
I'd like to find that thread of contortionist steering wheel repair... should be good for a laugh!
-edit- for sushi comment
And master sushi.... I thought I might get some flak... but I also thought I'd get some laughs and replies too! And I think I had something else on my brain other than steering wheels at the time, and notice! I did put 2 anti-flaming comments at the start of my thread. So at least I used protection with the whole prostitute thing
[This message has been edited by blakeinspace (edited 03-05-2002).]
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01:05 PM
thomas_l Member
Posts: 1197 From: Alpharetta, GA, US Registered: Apr 2001
Those 4 bolts hold the tilt knuckle to the lower column. You have to disassemble the column down to that point to have good access. Good enough to remove all 4 bolts one at a time and reinstall them with red locktite. Pay attention when you take it apart - it can quickly turn into one of those puzzles that open the gates of Hell (ala the Hellraiser movies) I have done dozens of them along with other various theft damage jobs and it's no fun.
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03:52 PM
85GToronto Member
Posts: 927 From: Red Deer, Alberta, Canada Registered: Dec 2001
Interesting stuff guys, I guess the next time I have to do this I'll be looking for 2 extra bolts, I seriously only retightened the 2, hehe.
That thread about the gymnastic routine is seriously worth a laugh or two-as a matter of fact I'm going to go find it right now..... https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/017895.html there it is...I seriously want more detail from Devotshka on that one cause that description simply leaves waaaay too much to the imagination-LOL (although the lack of information might be what makes it that much funnier)
GET THIS FIXED immediatly or something very bad can happen. I had the same problem in mine took to a local shop that has a GM trained mech. It took him a couple of hours to find two of the bolts, they had completly fallen out, and then put it all back together. He put locktite on the all the bolts (very good idea) and then reassembled, now the steering is very tight.
Yes, There are notes in my cave about this with a link to Oliver's site that has the nice picture guide.
All 4 bolts need to be done. only 2 isn't good at all. two could cause the thing to come loose again or crack something.
Steering wheel and lock plate... Autozone has loaner tools for this I think. You can make a pivot pin puller if needed.
It's not super hard to fix but will eat allot of time. I've done allot of column work and mine took at least a couple hours to fix. You don't want to rush this or you'll loose or break something important.
------------------ 11-Sept-01, The day the world as we knew it ended.