Is the steering rack adjustable?

Just got my car back from the body shop. They put a new rack in it. The steering wheel is very stiff and does not return to center...does not return AT ALL.

Even if I turn it sharp, it will stay at that angle. The alignment was done. The suspension itself wasn't damaged. Just the rack and inner tie rod. I hit a tire wall at a track.

Is there an adjustment on the rack? I'm taking the car back to them to fix it...but I'm just wondering kind of out of curiosity.

It's a brand new rack from honda...which...BTW, costs $1200!!!! without tie rods.

You need to have the Torque Sensor neutral position relearned. You can do it your self.



This post has been edited by Stratocaster on Nov 3 2009, 06:56 AM

wow. Thanks for the very informative post. I will take this to the body shop as I don't have a scanner.

Would that help just the return or would it help the stiffness of the steering wheel also? I feel like there's way more effort to turn the wheel now. The EPS is def. working and the light is off.

Thanks again.

This post has been edited by B serious on Nov 3 2009, 08:26 AM

You don't use a scanner. You can use a jumper wire. Unless the car is going to the dealer, they are not going to be able to figure this out. When I had the issue, I had to reset it myself.

You use a jumper wire to jump PIN 9 to PIN 4 in the ODBII connector. That connection is step 3. You can do this at home.

yes, it is the reason your steering feels heavy and the wheel does not return to center properly. You alingment could be a problem as well. Get it checked by a good alignment short. Body shops suck for alignments.

hehe, i just went through this

except my rack only cost 175. majestic honda has em for 800

Cool. The car had to go back anyway because of some other small items that weren't in order.

I printed out and gave them the procedure you posted. The less work I have to do the better. They got paid to do the repairs...not me.

The body shop has been really good with working stuff out with me so far...there were a LOT of things I wanted done to the car besides the repairs...so small issues don't really bug me as long as they fix them all.

hmm...the body shop took it to Honda and Honda decided that that's how the rack should feel.

WTF? It feels like garbage...definately not what it felt like before.

I don't know if they just drove it or if they even actually tried reprogramming it.


:sigh:...I'm gonna have to just do it myself.

Stratocaster, can you tell me how to count the pins? As in how do I know which end to start counting from so I know which one #9 and #4 are.

I guess I'll also have to check the alignment out. They have a print out at the body shop. So I'll have to see if they didn't dial in enough caster or something else.

Thanks.

This post has been edited by B serious on Nov 5 2009, 08:50 AM

I know all OBD2 stuff on every car is identical as far as the DLC connector goes...

Is this an accurate pin out?

http://www.gendan.co.uk/article_3.html

Pins 1, 8, 9 and 16 are labled on the connector. that looks right to me, but I always referance the numbers on the connector to be sure.

This is exactly what happened to me. Three Honda dealers told me that without a code, there was nothing they could do. As much as I pushed them, they did nothing.

So I did it myself. It was easy. Just get a flash light, look at the numbers on the connector.

Thanks again. I drove the car for a while today and the steering felt like garbage. Even the slightest movement of my hand causes the car to wander and not want to straighten out. It's really annoying.

I'll have have some time to try the fix you posted on Tuesday and I'll repost with my results.

I wonder who took the time to print-screen, edit and upload that picture of the service manual?

Im having a similar issue with my car. The car wouldnt hold an alignment when I first got it. Had it aligned 4 times in 5k miles. Finally i realized that I had NO compliance bushings. I ordered new ones and had them pressed. Now an alignment holds.

A month later, I had my transmission replaced. Ive had some steering issues with the car ever since.

To the right, the wheel moves half an inch or so maybe even an inch before the car starts to slightly change lanes.

To the left, if I so much as move the wheel a hair, the car changes direction DRASTICALLY.

I dont know if my rack is bent? A suspension compoenet is bent? Alignment is off?

Weird. This car is so sensitive lol.

You did and I thank you. over the years I I have told folks how to do this and when that picture was posted, I copied the URL

Lets turn this ^ into an internet picture copyright frenzy!
That'll be cool.



Fact is, I don't even have control over that piece of server.
Can't edit, add or remove, nothing.
There is no telling how long it will be up, as the ISP "Tiscali" doens't exist anymore and was taken over by Telfort a while back.
Maybe someday a Telfort account manager, overly eager on cutting costs, will delete it all.
Oh well....

If you start at the end of the url and delete everything up to "onlinestaorage" (so you keep that) you can probably see the content of the server.

check for a bent rack... it's the most overlooked issue.

How do you troubleshoot a bent rack?

^ Nevermind, I missed the part where the OP states a new rack was fitted.

What I did to discover one on my friend's s2k was to remove both the outer and inner tie rods along with the dust covers. Then I had someone turn the wheel as I watched the steering rod go left and right. If it is bent, you will see the rod coming out crooked as the wheel is turned, and of course, the wheel will get very hard to turn as the bent section is forced inside the straight rack bore.

Edit: I did the procedure but...still the same issue.....

There is a lot of uneven caster now that I had a chance to look at the alignment print out. There is 6.8 degrees on one side and 8.9 degrees on the other side. Idiots.

But why would that cause the wheel NOT to return to center on either right or left turns? Usually caster makes the wheel return better...or atleast it would only return badly to one side. The is at 0. The camber is at around 2.3-2.4 degrees neg up front (spec'd that way by me).

The car was fine before. It was aligned the same way (except for the uneven caster). It was lowered to the same height before.

It's really annoying trying to drive because if I even nudge the wheel or have a little more weight in one hand, it makes the car wander to one side. Then if I adjust...it wanders to the other side and I do this back and forth drunken motion for like a quarter mile till I can finally straighten it out to the exactly microscopic position where the car will actually go straight.

I'm thinking maybe rack preload adjustment but it's a brand new rack. Shouldn't that be adjusted from the factory?

This post has been edited by B serious on Nov 10 2009, 10:51 AM

It is the same for ABS as it is EPS. You have to be holding the steering wheel to the 45 degrees to the right when you turn on the car. If not, the ABS system will flash out it's pending codes.

So short, turn 45, turn on car. In that order (see Pic of doc above for whole process)

This post has been edited by Stratocaster on Nov 10 2009, 10:44 AM

ninja edit on my above post, BTW.

The installation of the steering rack, and alignment are now your issue. Here is what I think happened.

The steering rack was installed, and the rack was not centered. The tie rod arms were installed, and adjusted with the rack miss centered. I.E. They did not install the tie rods evenly. they just screwed them on and they adjusted your alignment. When they aligned the car, they could not adjust the alignment properly. I would better the you have a bent lower and/or upper control arm too

These caster settings ( "6.8 degrees on one side and 8.9 degrees on the other side.") on a perfect car would result a heavy steering wheel, that would not return to center.

This post has been edited by Stratocaster on Nov 10 2009, 02:48 PM

lol...this is a nightmare. How do you center a rack?

I might have to take the car somewhere else to be aligned and just flip the body shop the bill.

I'll have to get underneath the car to see if there's any other parts that are bent. The side with the impact had more neg. camber than the side without the impact. I don't think the LCA is bent.

The car hit a tire wall at a track. The rack broke because the tire was turned. I don't really think there'd be a bent arm.

The body panels on that side weren't absolutely CRUSHED...just dented. The impact wasn't enough to cause any frame damage. The headlight on that side was even fine. The fender area over the wheel was pretty much untouched. The fender was bent behind the my RF wheel from a tire wall tire pushing it in.

It really wasn't a huge impact.

The funny thing about all this is that the rack acts normal when the car is not moving. It feels just like it used to. The heavy steering starts when I start moving. That could be because of the caster.

But....the wheel won't return to center on either side. And the wheel only freezes up at about 45 degrees from straight ahead. It returns to 45 degrees and then just stops. I can put the wheel where I need it to be and go through the curves in my neighborhood without touching the wheel again until the curve straightens out.

This post has been edited by B serious on Nov 10 2009, 04:06 PM

Ok...so I had the car up on a lift today to see WTF is going on.

Nothing else looks bent. BUT..if I grab the wheels and try to turn them while they're in the air, they're REALLY hard to turn side to side.

The steering wheel is also overly stiff even when the car is in the air.

This really pisses me off. The body shop took the car over to Honda. Honda test drove the car and used 1/4 tank of my gas to return the car to me in the same condition. The thing that makes me the most angry is that they did all this with a comment at the bottom of the work order that says "problem is fixed" or something like that.

I'm going to call them tomorrow. I have a friend who is a tech at the dealer. I guess I'll just ask him if I can request him to be the only person working on my car and to see if I can get this fixed either for free or have them charge the body shop.

I'm not paying for this dammit.