76 Aspen Handeling

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Dave Wilson

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OK, been away from Mopar for near 4o yrs. Doing a retirement project. The Aspen still has that "no road feel" steering. What is the solution. Thanks
 
It would be more helpful to get more information about your car.

Chrysler has had a problem with steering gear internal valving not set up correctly, pump pressure being too high and overall looseness feeling in the gear.
If you have a V8, finding and inserting a /6 pump pressure valve helps. There are other methods to do this as well (do a search about P/S pressure here).

A good, but expensive, fix is to install a Borgeson steering gear (check out their ad on Right side of screen). They take a newer Jeep steering gear and make it fit our cars. They rate top notch on fixing most, if not all, steering problems and in a smaller package - but they are not cheap.

Another fix is to contact Firm Feel
Firm Feel Steering Box Rebuilds FMJ-Body . They are also not cheap but heard good things from them.

I have a FFI steering gear in my garage - just waiting for me to install it (um, one of these days...). My other car, I most likely will go with the Borgeson gear when the time comes.
BudW
 
All in all, an over the counter rebuilt/reman steering gear do NOT fix most problems, so unless in a pinch, I would stay away from most part store reman gears. FFI's gears have a much better record.

I will let others chime in here as to the best replacement.
So far, part store steering gears I have installed, have a 3 of 20 (or 21) record. My only FFI gear hasn't been installed yet.
 
While not making it feel like rack and pinion steering, putting a Firm Feel Stage II box in my car made a HUGE difference in handling. No more wandering driving straight and no more constant correction on curves, plus the on center dead spot is all but nonexistent.
 
I heard the FF Stage III box is a great update,Anyone here have one in there car?
 
Also, make sure the steering/suspension components (ball joints, steering joints, bushings, etc) are all good. One other thing that helps a little bit is replacing the k-frame rubber mounting insulators with either poly or solid ones. Poly still gives some noise/vibration isolation but keeps the k-frame from squishing around. Squishing,,,,,,,,,technical term, lol.
 
Without regard to cost the best bolt-in solution that uses the stock setup is the Borgeson box with their matching power steering pump. Every rebuilt Chrysler box I have seen always has the slop at the 12 o' clock position. This is true even for Firm Feel boxes. The Borgeson fixes this while tightening up the steering and adding more ratio right from the box.

Bergman sells the box and has an adapter that will mate it to your column without fabrication. I did this install on two cars and would absolutely do it again if I was building another Mopar. Cost me about $850 when I did it six years ago.
 
I have read that the Borgeson box makes a annoying hissing noise and there is no fix for it. Something you may consider before going that route.
 
Increasing the steering effort does not change the design physics of the system. For truly linear steering you must go rack and pinion.
 
Don't forget Steer & Gear . They also sell 3 stages of firmness steering boxes. I have a stage 2 box that Im happy with but if I have to get another I would go stage 3 . They are less than a Firm Feel box but others may have mixed thoughts about them.
 
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