Steering wheel off center

[theman1990]

I took my 96 out for a good curvy drive today, and now the steering wheel is about 10 degrees off center. No HARD bumps, no curbs, drives arrow straight, and the tires look good. Alignment is recent.... Any ideas?

***FIXED***

The bottom A-arm toe adjustment nut was FINGER tight!! Reset it to where the dirt out line used to be, and probem solved!

 

[PaulL]

I'd say that you're out of alignment again. Maybe things just settled since the latest one, or maybe something was loose, etc.

Actually, the car could be in alignment, just with the steering wheel off center.

Even when the front end is out of alignment, the car will still track straight due to the toe in on the rear end.

If you adjust your front tie rods 1/8 turn on each side to return the wheel to center (tighter on one side, looser on the other), it won't change your alignment and things should be fine.

 

[theman1990]

Any other ideas here?

 

[Briank]

The alignment should not change without a reason and centering the wheel is part of an alignment. I would take it back ASAP and have it redone.

 

[goldNSX]

Agree with Paul.

But maybe you bent the steering wheel? :tongue:

 

[theman1990]

Yeah.... with my huge one arm!! lol

 

[theman1990]

Problem solved!!!

 

[blackna1]

Was just wondering, is it possible to re-center the steering wheel by yourself? Or should it always be done by an alignment shop?

 

[Doc308]

If the steering wheel is only slightly off and the car tracks perfectly straight, you can center it yourself via adjusting the lengths of the tie rods ( ie, shortening one side and lengthening the other the side equally. Whether you lengthen/shorten the right or left sides is, of course, dependent upon which direction the wheel is off center) and it shouldn't affect the overall alignment too much. In doing this , it takes very little adustment to change the settings, so be careful not to overdo this. However, if the wheel way off center, a complete 4 -wheel alignment should be done. Although I haven't done this with my NSX, I've done it with several other cars over the years with no problem. Of course, in every case the wheel was only slightly off and , in every case, it took much less than 1 turn of the tie rods to center the wheel.

 

[blackna1]

Thanks for the reply, that basically answered my question. I installed my momo steering wheel and because the momo hub did not have a fine tune capabilities, the wheel was off by barely 10 degrees. I thought since I've never done the alignment I would just bring it to the shop and had the whole 4 wheel alignment done to the specs I like. But next time it comes up, I'll know what to do. :smile: