Power steering spool valve adjustment

[Chris RB]

Well, I made the mistake of screwing with my power steering to fix a leak and now here we are…

I’ve got the car off the ground, when I start it up, the steering wheel is still. As soon as I turn the wheel in one direction or the other, it’s just keeps going. Tapping the valve block has fixed the unbalanced assist but I don’t know how to make the wheel stop spinning following my inputs.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[MoPar~Man]

Did you see this thread:

Steering wheel wants to turn right while idling, steering gear adustment or front-end alignment?

1967 Monaco. Front stub replaced, steering gear moved to new stub. No alignment done (yet). Tie rod adjusters adjusted by eye. Upper control arm bolts tightened in center positions. All new bushings, tie rod ends, ball joints, etc. Torsion bar height adjustments made. Front end has...

www.forcbodiesonly.com

Long story short - I also changed a seal to fix a leak. The steering shaft (worm shaft) seal. I didn't take much of it apart, but I did mix up a couple parts, I corrected that, but I still end up with a very touchy steering gear that wants to turn the wheels in either direction if given the chance. I've lost the wheels self-centering ability when the car is moving. I'm going to work more on this over the winter, I have a spare steering gear box that I can putz with at the same time.

But definately post here what you find about yours.

 

[Chris RB]

Did you see this thread:

Steering wheel wants to turn right while idling, steering gear adustment or front-end alignment?

1967 Monaco. Front stub replaced, steering gear moved to new stub. No alignment done (yet). Tie rod adjusters adjusted by eye. Upper control arm bolts tightened in center positions. All new bushings, tie rod ends, ball joints, etc. Torsion bar height adjustments made. Front end has...

www.forcbodiesonly.com

Long story short - I also changed a seal to fix a leak. The steering shaft (worm shaft) seal. I didn't take much of it apart, but I did mix up a couple parts, I corrected that, but I still end up with a very touchy steering gear that wants to turn the wheels in either direction if given the chance. I've lost the wheels self-centering ability when the car is moving. I'm going to work more on this over the winter, I have a spare steering gear box that I can putz with at the same time.

But definately post here what you find about yours.

Will do, I'll probably post a video tonight of the steering wheel on here as well.

 

[Chris RB]

Here's the video of what's going on.

This video was taken with the front of the car lifted off the ground.

 

[Chris RB]

Well, after redoing this thing 3 times I've finally fixed it...

Turns out it was the O rings I replaced. The ones I put in were so close to the original ones that came out of it but were ever so slightly thicker. I wouldn't have thought this would have made a difference but it did.
I bought a seal kit from Rockauto: "Edelmann 8518", as they were designed specifically for this job.

I put it back together and all my steering problems were fixed.

Hope this is useful information for someone.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[MoPar~Man]

Well, after redoing this thing 3 times I've finally fixed it...

Turns out it was the O rings I replaced. The ones I put in were so close to the original ones that came out of it but were ever so slightly thicker. I wouldn't have thought this would have made a difference but it did.
I bought a seal kit from Rockauto: "Edelmann 8518", as they were designed specifically for this job.

I put it back together and all my steering problems were fixed.

Hope this is useful information for someone.

Cheers,
Chris

Are you talking about this o-ring?

Because the spool valve itself has no o-rings on it.

 

[Chris RB]

Are you talking about this o-ring?

View attachment 694059

Because the spool valve itself has no o-rings on it.

Yes, that O ring (and the other 4).

 

[3175375]

Yes, that O ring (and the other 4).

Other 4? Please educate me…

 

[Chris RB]

Other 4? Please educate me…

The other 4 I’ve highlighted in this picture (5 in total). They have to be the exact, correct size/thickness.

 

[MoPar~Man]

My gear got messed up without me even touching the spool valve housing. I only monkeyed with it later because that's what your supposed to do when it wants to turn by itself.

Later I also changed the o-rings mentioned here, even though I had no leaks from the valve body. I changed them because I took the valve body off the gear. I don't see how any of those o-rings touch the lever pin that moves the spool, so I can't believe they could possibly play a role here. They're strictly to seal the oil ports between the valve body and the gear unit.

The new o-rings were part of a large Sunsong steering gear rebuild kit.

At rock auto I've looked through 67 - 73 Monaco and Polara, all the various engine options from slant-6 to 440. Looking at the "Power Steering Control Valve Seal Kit". They show either a single option (the Edelmann 8518) or 3 options (the Edelmann plus SUNSONG 8401175 plus FVP 8518). I can't figure out why, for some year/engine combinations you're only shown the Edelmann option, and not all 3 options.

The Edelmann kit is $7, the Sunsong is $2, the FVP is not available. From the pics, they look identical. 7 o-rings, 3 small red + 4 larger black.

 

[Chris RB]

The 4 I’ve highlighted in this picture. They have to be the exact, correct size/thickness.

I'm not sure we had the same initial problem. My steering only got messed up when I tried to replace the seals on my valve body (I didn't touch the PS box itself).

The O rings do play a factor though.
The first time, I used thicker O rings and my steering had this problem, after I tightened down the valve body I had no power steering whatsoever (almost felt like the boost was working against me as I thought I was going to break the steering wheel.)
The second time I replaced them with ones that looked very similar and I had the non-centering issue (which was exacerbated by tightening down the valve body).
The third and final time, I put in the correct O rings and had no issues whatsoever.

The problem with the oversized O rings was that under compression they would interfere with the flow of the PS fluid. I wouldn't have thought it to be enough to make a difference but, after seeing how touchy the spool valve was, it was my last idea. (Basically a hail Mary).

This video helped me understand how exactly these things work:

Cheers
Chris