So my steering is super sloppy and loose. With the car turned on and on the ground, I moved the steering wheel and noticed what I would consider a lot of slop in the control valve (rag joint and pitman arm seemed fine). . My question is, how do I know whether or not my control valve is a good candidate for a rebuild or for replacement? . The wccc video stated that a lot of units are out of tolerance and are not rebuildable? I’m pretty confident in my abilities in rebuilding, but don’t want to spend the 90 bucks on a rebuild kit if I’m going to have to buy a replacement after that.
You can rebuild it. Time & patience. Take pic’s and make sure you have the order & correct side of parts. Check the spool valves & bores for pitting.
Most likely you will succeed.You may need a replacement part or 2 that the kits do not have.
The repop’s are really not very good & very expensive. They can work if you have no other choice.
The repop rams are an issue waiting to happen. Poor redesign. Turn too far & you will have the ram sitting on the ground surrounded by LOTS of fluid! They do not have a good “out/extended” stop, easily over come by hyd pressure.
Most of the looseness is in the gearbox and linkage.
Meaning…?
The control valve moves about 1/8" left or 1/8" right when the engine is off with no movement of the steering linkage. It’s a control valve. It moves from side to side or it doesn’t work at all. This movement is normal. You should see about 1/4" - 5/16" total movement with the engine off.
With the engine running, moving the steering enough to move the valve results in movement of the steering linkage.
Here is a great video from WCCC’s covering steering issues. At the 12 minute mark Don covers adjusting the steering gearbox.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=69idxXfXJv4
Steven
I went through that video prior to this post. It’s great! Like I originally posted, I checked the slop in the gearbox by moving the rag joint and feeling the pitman arm. The movement I see in the control valve is definitely more than 5/16
The control valve is likely not an issue. Usually you will need to replace the idler arm and all the tie rod ends to eliminate play. You need to check the control valve with the engine running.
Remember, this is a 75 year old Bendix power assisted steering design. It’s never going to handle as well as a rack and pinion equipped 1971 Pinto.
If you’re driving anything newer on a regular basis the Cougar will seem a little loose and vague in comparison. But not horrible.
My Cat, with a Borgeson remanufactured gearbox and new-ish linkage and a urethane rag joint, steers and feels pretty good.
(Steering linkage rebuilt and the gearbox replaced over ten years ago with not many miles driven since that time)
The rag joint can cause a lot of slop if it’s bad. Had that issue with my '77 LTD II and that cure it. It’s not hard to see that though. I would check the idler arm.
Copy that. I bought an idler arm so we’ll see if it makes any difference.
I noticed the same thing. With my engine out currently, I’m looking at maybe a borgeson box. I can watch as I roll the rag joint that the valve end of the arm moves. A lot. Before any movement in the linkage. I’m a rookie, so sometimes I don’t know what I’m seeing.