Had the local tire place take my 67 coupe for a ride. He told me that I had bad "torque steer." I knew about the problem but didn't know what to call it.

Driving down the road, hands off the wheel, if I give it a little gas, the body ***** to the RIGHT. Get off the gas, it straightens out. Car never turns either direction - just the BODY!! Steering wheel stays straight hand off while doing this. VERY CREEPY....

So how do I fix this? Could it be an alignment problem with the "OFFSET?"

I plan on extending the threads on my front struts so that they can bump the caster up to 3 to 4 degrees to fix some of the oversteer problem... also to replace all the bushings with new urethane. Is it possible this might help this "torque steer" as well??

Thanks for the comments.

"67 Oldy"

 

Check your rear leaf spring bushings, shackles and U-bolts. Make sure your rear end isn't floating around back there.
On the front end, check your strut rod bushings.
I'm suprised you don't have to make a steering correction when that happens, unless your steering system is really sloppy.

Before you start messing with the strut rods, you should learn how the whole front suspension works. It's more complicated than just cutting new threads.

Good luck,

 

The rear is solid. New urethane bushings and new heavy duty springs.

The front springs have 1/2 turn taken out. Last allignment results show 0 caster for one wheel and -.1 for the other. Stock spec is 1/2 degree positive (+). Hi performance strut kits suggest 3 to 4 degrees positive caster to correct oversteer problems, help bring wheel back to center and provide better high speed tracking. The adjusting nut has on one side has maybe 1/2 of threads left, and the other side has only 1/4 inch left. Do you think just changing the worn out stock bushings to urethane will provide the room I need for them to dial in 3 degrees? The alignment shop said the "rule of thumb" is about 1/4 inch per degree. I thought I'd have the stock strut rod turned and extend the threaded area another 3/4 inch on each side, just to make sure there would be enough for them to bring it up to AT LEAST 2 degrees positive. I know there are really cool strut kits out there with lots of room and better travel compensation, but I'm on a budget and $369 to $400 for Strut rods is just out of the question...

Steering is nice and tight. Virtually no play at all. Power steering valve was rebuilt and is leak free!!!

 

Uh...torque steer is usually caused by the driven wheels causing a mild or severe pull to one side when you step on it. It's not normally associated with RWD cars though since the part of the reason it's called torque STEER is because it deals with torque applied to the front wheels where your steering also is.

I think what you're experiencing is either body flexing or engine torque

Body Torque (body flexing), body is twisting when you get on it. Since your car's engine revs clockwise it goes to the right. - Add underbody braces to fix this.

Engine torque is when the you have old or loose engine/tranny mounts and while the engine is under load, it literally shift it's weight to one side thus producing a pulling motion to the right side (in this case). Get out of the car while it's in nuetral or park, rev the engine up. It probably is twisting pretty heavy in there.

Check the engine and tranny mounts and replace as needed first.

 

yeah, and as far as i remember if you have a non-posi rear your right tire will get the torque under load, thus pushing the car to the left a little. my FRD buick does that all the time, coming off a light, if i came thru a turn and floor it causing a down shift, the steering gets a little floaty and pulls, lets up thru the gear change and comes back when back in gear.



as the others have said, check your mounts and bushings. and some braces would help too.

 

Posi-rear, so that's not it.

I WILL check the engine to see if it's an engine mount issue.

Bottom braces?? Please point me in the right direction. I'm familiar with the topside stuff like montecarlo bars and whatnot, but never heard about stuff for the bottom side...

 

if just the body is moving, why suspect the steering/suspension. I would check shocks, springs, mounts, etc.

 

there are subframe connectors that connest the front and rear frame rails to make the body stiffer. i suggest you locate your current problem first than worry about sub frame's.

 

Have you compensated as much as possible for Caster with the shims?
Also when you say "***** to the right", am I correct in that what you are saying is the body turns over the chassis horizontally slightly to the right under light acceleration (we call that dog legging or crabbing, not "torque steer", but I wasn't going to get A.R. on you).

If you have compensated for caster with the shims as much as possible, and the body is crabbing on acceleration (and it's not the rear end loose under the car), you've got a serious problem somewhere in the unibody. I'd suggest getting it to a body shop with a frame rack and find out what is broken/damaged. How much chassis rust does this car have?
There is no reason outside of chassis damage that you shouldn't be able to get to stock specs for caster with shim adjustment.
As for turning the stock strut rods and adding poly bushings, aren't you half way there to a set of Street-Or-Track rods in machining & parts costs? It's not just turning more threads, you also have to turn down the shoulder. (IMO) Adding poly bushings to shortened strut rods, is asking for trouble.
Are you having an issue with the steering wheel returning to center? How is adding caster going to change oversteer in your application?
Either I am misunderstanding what you are saying, or something doesn't add up.
I'd get a real close inspection of your uni-body, and find out why you at least can't get back to factory specs, and where that chassis movement is coming from.

Scott

 

Body was in pretty good shape. Front frame rail on right was replaced, and a new section spliced into left. 4 wheel alignment says everything is kosher, dimension wise (diagonals are equal...)

Turning and threading the strut rod is a zero cost alternative - I'm a supervisor in a factory filled with machinists... But I'm wondering if perhaps the rubber is just too old and compressing instead of allowing the lower arm to pull forward to get the caster set properly. I've already got all the urethane bushings, but I want to be sure the range of adjustment is there before I take it in for alignment.

You're right, this could be more accurately called "crabbing"... that's what it looks like. You can't actually feel it, but you can easily see it when it happens. The car launches great - nice and straight, and a really hard stop (no skidding) is dead straight as well - so I'm hoping that this is a good indicator that there's no chassis problems. Having diagnostics done on a frame machine is out of my budget... the problem is more a "would be nice if it didn't do that" thing, than one that is a life threatening "holy mackeral I've got to get that fixed" one...