So yesterday I took my 89 GTU or its first test drive under its own power. I was psyched. As good as it was to get a feel for a working powertrain I did run into one slight issue.

For my test drive I took the car down the road about 3-4 blocks and everything was going well. Car rode smooth engine felt good (loud cause there was no exhaust on the car yet) I didnt want to go too far so I pulled into a driveway on the left and did a 3 point turn. The steering at a stop is hard because I dont have power steering on the car. So I back out of the driveway to complete the 3 point turn and pull back onto the road in the opposite direction. Except now when going down the road straight the wheel is like 70 degrees off to the right. WTF?

I got back to the house and we popped the hood to check a few things. First of all the wheels move together so I prob dont have a tie rod issue. and when we turn the wheel the steering shaft turns and the wheels turn together so I ont know what happened.

I did dissasemble the rack a long time ago to depower it correctly as show on this site and flynmiata, but I havent used the depowered rack yet. I sure as hell hope its not an issue with the rack, I am hoping the steering shaft didnt skip a couple splines on the rack or something.

The only thing I can think of is the steering wheel is loose and I'm just deisel and turned the steering wheel too hard or something. I dont know I really hope its not rack/shaft related cause I dont wanna pull this engine again when I'm this close.

 

Check play in tie rod ends and ball joints.

 

Thanks but I dont think that would account for the crazy steering wheel angle. I didnt get a change to look at the steering wheel but how many bolts hold the steering wheel in place?

Is there a chance that I could rotate the wheel without turning the steering shaft

 

One bolt and no, it is splined, it shouldn't slip.

 

So does anyone have an idea on what would be wrong with this thing?

There is no play in the steering wheel.. so its prob not ball joint or anything, and the wheels move together well.. its just I just turn the wheel full lock one time and now the wheel is off center.. I wouldent worry about it if I knew it was just loose where the steering wheel bolts to the steering shaft, but I dont know if thats possible.

 

Time to get out the tools and jack up the front...

 

The car is about an hour away and I prob wont be able to get to it for a week so I am just trying to get some more info

 

look at the front suspension, we can't figure it out without looking at it.

 

Might be a broken tie rod, or maybe its loose for some reason, for example, half the bolts are there.

Take it to a tire shop. Get it realined.

 

There is only one bolt on each tierod.

 

There's no way it's a tie rod. I've seen this before, it's probably just that the steering shaft is loose somewhere. Although it's splined, if the pinch bolt is not properly tightened, the splines will slip. Check to see if it's tight at the joint under the dash, at the rack, or if the steering wheel itself is tight.

 

You can have the steering shaft bolt 3 threads on and you won't be able to slip the wheel on the splines. It's something mentioned above or your steering rack moved.

 

Also I dont think I made it clear enough that before I did the 3 point turn the wheel was perfectly straight. Then I did the 3 point turn to turn around and it was on the trip back that the steering wheel was crooked.. SO it happened when I was doing the 3 point turn. Thats why I'm saying I doubt its alignmnet or anything like that.

If the steering rack was moving around or loose, or the tie rods were loose I would feel some play or sloppyness in the steering wheel, but that deff wasnt the case. There was zero play in the steering mechanisms at any time.. even on the way back. It was just crooked... Also when I was turning the wheel if I was having engagement issues with the splines of the steering shaft meeting up with the teeth on the rack.. then I would think it would create a notchy feel or I would feel it slip a tooth or 2 (remember I had a lot of tension on the steering wheel trying to turn it full lock with no powersteering at a dead stop) so if I slipped a tooth or something I think the wheel would spin freely for a second and that would deff be an immediate warning sign. I think somewhere in the steering shaft or at the wheel its self something came loose. Like I havent pulled the steering wheel off this car yet but I looked at some pics of the assembly online and it looks like the center of the wheel under the horn has a round metal plate to it with splines on it that match up to the splines of the steering shaft. Then the plastic of the steering wheel is molded to the round metal plate.. its as if the plastic part of the wheel came loose from the metal part and rotated around it.

Here is a pic to show you what I meen
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mazda...mZ160287152863

In the third pic it shows the back of the wheel, and should give you an idea of what I meen. I just wanna get some input from guys who know this car better than myself.
Honestly when I made this post I was hoping someone would say yeah thats common lots of people have had that issue and would be able to give me the generic "do this" solution, but no such luck.