Hey guys just to add to this I have found on another site an extract for the HR steering box explaining the adjustment involving taking off the pitman arm and using a guage on the steering wheel. Is it necessary to go to this length to adjust it/is the HR box even the same method as the WB power box anyway?

great thats not exactly the news I wanted!! lol
What do you charge 2 redo them?
Thanks for your reply!

If its a HQ they can be a pig to park in tight spots with no power steer. It makes a great upper body workout. So if you park a lot, power steer is the go. But on the open road with no power steer - yeah brilliant, great road feel....

Rgds, John

This myth of power steering providing less feel on the open road is just that, a myth !!

Old style power steer systems like the ram & valve systems as seen on HK/T/G & Fords pre-XA, are slow, vague & over-assisted. They dont provide much feel & have too many turns lock-to-lock.

The Bendix-Bishop power steering box as seen in HQ-WB & Fords XA-XH are variable ratio. They have less turns lock-to-lock than their manual steer counterparts & are very direct in the straight ahead position. Most problems occur when they are not set up properly by an experienced wheel aligner.

When these cars were new, many came from the factory with cross-ply tyres. When they are fitted with decent radial tyres the alignment figures have to be adjusted accordingly. Ive if you run more positive caster they drive like a late Commodore.

I own 2 HQs, one is a V8 Kingswood & the other is a 6-cyl Premier, both with power steering. Ive set them up to give virtually the same road feel as my WB DeVille. On the open road they are very stable with great road feel.

Jump into a low mileage WB Statesman tell me it has bad open road feel.

johnperth, in NSW 2" free-play at the steering wheel wheel will fail a roadworthy inspection. Im not familiar with the rules in other states.

Dr Terry

terry 2" didnt bother the road testers here, but they did pick other stupid stuff, like making me weld the tonner body to the chassis, which I had to take to higher authority to get overturned..
Also there is a bit of spring" to allow for.
I am having a clean out and have discovered a ram assisted system, I suspect it is Ford, so it is possibly XW/XY then is it? I did not realise they had that system.

Just in addition To my prior post I adjusted my wheel alignment with an iPhone app and it worked remarkably well. I added plenty of shims for -ve camber and positive castor and it handles like a dream. Except the steering effort!!!

No GM, you don't use the I phone as a shim, just its app.

Yes Jim, I was being a bit silly. I still think iPhones are good as shims and not not much else, but that's another story.
Chris, I'll be interested to see how close you get it. I assume it uses the internal attitude sensor, which is renowned as a a fairly inaccurate device. Are you supposed to calibrate it on a level surface first, and have the car level as well? We used to do castor and camber with spirit levels on F5000 cars, but I can't see how it can help with setting toe.