Steering Effort

[Byrd48]

Hi,
I recently replaced the control arm bushings and ball joints on the front end. I reassembled everything, still on jack stands, but it seems like it takes more effort than it should to turn the wheel, again still on jack stands with no tires on the car.
Is there anything I could have done in reassembly that would cause this? I didn't replace any steering components, just the ball joints and bushings.
Thanks!
Jon

[bobplyler]

A couple of years ago, I replaced the control arms, with ball joints and bushings. One of the ball joints was dry, and the steering effort was real high. I replaced that ball joint. You can check if one is bad by unhooking the tie rods and seeing if one side is harder than the other. Then detach one of the ball joints, and see if it's the lower or upper.

[18Fiatsandcounting]

Jon, how stiff is it? New ball joints will be a little stiff until they wear a little bit, but it shouldn't be significantly different (than the old ones) when turning with the steering wheel. Ideally, with the front wheels off the ground you should be able to rotate the wheel by grabbing the tire and twisting, and you'll see the steering wheel spinning rapidly. Make sure your steering wheel isn't locked. If it's too stiff for you to be able to do that, you might have gotten some ball joints that are somewhat frozen up. They *probably* will loosen with time, but no guarantee.

The control arm bushings shouldn't have any effect on the steering. The other thing that can cause stiff steering is a worn idler assembly (passenger side), but if that worked fine before, that's probably not the issue.

-Bryan

[85redpini]

Hi,
I recently replaced the control arm bushings and ball joints on the front end. I reassembled everything, still on jack stands, but it seems like it takes more effort than it should to turn the wheel, again still on jack stands with no tires on the car.
Is there anything I could have done in reassembly that would cause this? I didn't replace any steering components, just the ball joints and bushings.
Thanks!
Jon

hard steering is usually the idler arm.

[Byrd48]

I just tried grabbing the tire and I’m unable to turn it at all. The back joints are new and when I installed them, the joint initially turned with the nut and I had to apply pressure on the control arm so I could tighten the back joint nut. So they did move freely until I tightened everything down and put the springs in. I currently don’t have shocks installed, not sure if that would make a difference. Thanks!

[18Fiatsandcounting]

The shocks wouldn't make a difference in terms of steering. But, it sounds like you had the springs removed, yes? Any chance something got installed incorrectly, causing the front wheels to lock up? If one wheel is locked up, the other will be as well.

At this point, I'd remove one side of the steering idler arm on one wheel and see if the wheel turns. If it does turn normally, do the same on the other side. If it doesn't turn, something is wrong.

Just FYI: The ball joints will rotate in their tapered socket as you try and tighten the Nyloc nut. To get around this, I first tighten down the ball joint with a standard nut until the tapered joint is well seated, then back off the regular nut and put on the locknut and torque it down.

-Bryan