<VV> Steering Adjustment

[roboman91324 at aol.com]

Hugo and Jim,
Thanks for the additional info.
We may all be right.
Pretty much by definition, the only time you would need to adjust the steering box is after it has become worn and that would occur in the center steering area for most cars.  I have never worked on a new steering box but I suspect that a new system would exhibit the characteristics that Hugo describes.  In addition, the steering box may just seem to be looser when approaching the far right or left steering positions because the mechanical advantage of the Pitman arm is greatest there.
I imagine it would make sense for steering box manufacturers to compensate for anticipated wear patterns by making things tighter in the center when new.
A fair portion of my customer base has been in the machine tool trades.  (Just one of many industries.)  These machines use ball screws extensively.  One customer had an issue with his aged Moore Jig Grinder.  I determined that the ball screws were worn and had significant backlash when the table was in the center position.  The customer didn't want to spend the money on a rebuild or suffer the down time so the temporary fix was to grind the parts with the table off center in both X and Y where the wear on the ball screws was minimal.  All of the parts he was grinding were small enough so he could do this.  The CNC was also aged and did not have the backlash compensation capability that newer controllers have.  The customer was happy that I had found a zero cost way to fix the problem.  Just another war story from the past.
Doc