I have recently rebuilt my front end ,changed springs and shocks,tires and an alignment. And the car doesn't handle well at all at high speeds. Its actually a little scary to take on freeway and backroads. The front end is from PST and it was the polygraphite front end kit and a front 1-1/4 sway bar. The springs are Hotckins 1' lowering springs front and back and the shocks are KYB gas shocks. It is a 69 malibu fresh 350 and recently redone front disk brakes. The alignment was done twice because original specs made it handle really bad. So I took it back and the Caster is at 2.0 left front and 2.1 right. the camber is .3 and toe is .10. The tires are Yokohama Avid s/t 235 60/15 front and 255 60/15 in rear. I was told by shop that Steering Box has some play,wheel bearing has moderate play and Idler arm looseness. I loosed the steering box nut and tightened with an alen wrench then retightened and tightened up the wheel bearing, but don't know exactly what the Idler arm is. Could this be causing the bad handling or is there a larger problem? I don't have a rear swaybar but was hoping for better not worse handling before I rebuilt the front end. Anyone have problems like this becuase I like to go fast on freeway and dominate Hondas on the backroads. Any help is appriciated
thanks
steve

Do the obvious first. Did you repack the wheel bearings or just tighten them? Replace the idler arm, when worn it will cause handling problems. It is the arm on the frame rail opposite of the steering box. The adjustments on the steering box are only for initial set up when it was assembled. Tightening the box will not compensate for excessive wear and could make the handling problems worse by making the steering tight or overly sensitive. Sounds like everything else you have done is 1st class. The addition of a rear sway bar will be good for handling but will not solve you problem.

Yes I did pack the bearings. Do you think changing to a quick ratio power steering gear box will help get rid of the sloppy handling? As well as changing Idler Arm. Has anyone had problems changing boxes? Did it make much of a difference? I would like to get rid of the slop and in the future when I save more money I will get boxed lower rear control arms and add a 7/8' sway bar.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by 10bolt:
[QB] Yes I did pack the bearings

did you set the bearings in the races when you went to tighten and then back off the nut? the front wheel bearings might not have seated well into the races. i would go and take off one front hub and check it out. when you go to replace make sure the rear bearing gets seated in the race in the hub. while hold the hub firmly against race put front bearing in then washer then hand tighten nut until it bottoms out against washer. then spin hub while tighten and untightening nut with wrench(maybe 1/4 to 1/8 turn). once you are certain they are seated back off nut and stick cotter pin in(you do not want to tighten nut just take out play). if you did not do both sides this way do both. i feel this could be your problem. hope that helps.

quick steering box will help. i have one and love it. i went with a special krc pump so i can adjust pressure output to box so steering is not so soft.

Have you replaced the center (or drag) link? Sometimes gets overlooked because it doesn't come in a lot of rebuild kits.

I don't believe so i purchased the regular front end kit from pst.