<VV> Air? Chassis rot?

[Vairtec Corporation]

Someone wrote:
> You should be able to crank on the steering wheel with the tires locked
> stationary, and the steering box shouldn't move.

"Shouldn't" is the operative work here.

A Corvair as designed should not exhibit movement of the steering box, 
but the cars are now 50 years old and in a lot of instances, rusty.  
While I think it is more likely that worn pieces of the steering 
mechanism are what are moving, I see no reason to doubt that an entire 
steering box, 50 years old and on a 50-year-old frame rail on a 
50-years-rusting car, might itself be moving.

The steering box in a Corvair FC is mounted, for all practical purposes, 
right under the driver's feet.  In some less-than-perfect FCs my feet 
have felt the steering box exert pressure on the toeboard.

As a kid, perhaps 12 years old, I was "stooging" for an oval-track racer 
and was advised to not turn the steering wheel unless the car was 
moving.  By "moving" he meant even just a little, rolling the car 
forward or backward by hand.  His explanation was that to turn the 
steering with the car at rest was too hard on the steering gear.

It's amazing how things you learn as a child stay with you.  To this day 
-- A LOT of years later -- I try to never turn a steering wheel with the 
car at rest.