I went on a 185 mile trip on Saturday with our local car club. Some of the driving was on curvy roads, some was long stints of straight and narrow.
The steering response of the car was feeling numb. There will always be some free play in these Mopar power steering boxes even with a good rebuilt one from Firm Feel. That is what I have....a Stage 3 with Fast Ratio Pitman and Idler arms. Usually, the steering response is pretty sharp.
I had the wife saw the wheel back and forth while I looked at the linkage from underneath. The idler had some up and down movement at the K member but the steering box was flexing quite a bit.
Years ago, I welded in additional supports to reduce the chance of flex at the steering box mounting area so that was not the problem. It turns out that the mounting bolts had loosened up a bit.....they were all at least a full turn loose. I pulled them one by one and cleaned them with the wire wheel, then slathered them with Locktite and cranked them back in. For the idler, I put a thin washer in between the idler and K member and bolted it back up.
A test drive went well. The steering response was sharp like it used to be. I LOVE a free fix!
I had the steering box mounting bolts loosen up on my '64 Belvedere. Ever since then I've used red Locktite on the threads, and I haven't had that problem again.
Huh? I've never thought to check
When I was taking my junk apart years ago mine was loose also
I had the same issue about 6 months ago with my Dart. They were finger tight.
My guess is that the wider the front tires and the more aggressive you turn, the greater the likelihood that these bolts will loosen up.
Rebuilt my front end, gussets at box, reinforced at strut rod and LCA mounts, all clean metal and fasteners, torqued to spec, 100ft-lbs, and one came loose in a couple months.
I have adopted the practice of using Locktite but I must have skipped it when I installed this steering chuck way back in 2003.