1946 Champion Steering Mystery

[50Traveler]

A month or so ago I installed new tie rod ends. At that time it was easy to pivot the wheels from under the car with the front end jacked up. Smoothly and silently they freely moved from side to side with little effort. From inside the car spinning the wheel was so easy it looked like an early promo for power steering. Since then I have driven about 50 miles with out any trouble.

This week I jacked up the front end and replaced many of the old grease fittings. Some were clogged, some had no spring to push the sealing ball back into place, and some were just at a bad angle to let me get the gun onto them. Now the steering is stiff and with the car raised it takes about as much oomph to turn the wheel as it used to when on the ground.

An old hint from Gus Wilson's Model Garage mentioned grease fittings bottoming against the joint so I have loosened these to see if this was where the linkage was binding. This gave no relief.

Another possibility is that I knocked something out of whack when I was trying to remove the steering wheel. The first steering wheel that came with the car practically jumped off the column. When I installed the NOS one I added a bit of anti-seize since I knew I be back there again. Well, I tried to knock it off with a rubber mallet and tried hammering those wooden wedge shims between the wheel and the column. I never made much progress and will get create a bearing separator based puller later. I wasn't ever beating too hard on anything, but I still wonder if this is where I went wrong and somehow wrenched the shaft out of a good place.

Can anyone shed some light on my latest conundrum?

As always I am grateful for any advice.

Justin

[rbk]

To find where the problem is , separate the steering column from the steering linkage.

Robert Kapteyn

[50Traveler]

I give it a go and see. Thank you.