Upon his request, I'm forwarding a message originally sent by William
Claspy (wpc@po.cwru.edu) to the air-cooled vw discussion list
(vintagvw@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu). 

Sami (dakhlia@wuecona.wustl.edu)

Forwarded message:
>
>Hey there!
>
>I'm keen on borrowing my buddy's '71 camper for some travelling in a couple
>of weeks, but we're both concerned about a wierd problem that it's having.
>He was having some bad tread wear on the left front tire, so he took it in
>to the shop to have an alignment done.  Turns out the ball joints are shot,
>so they put in new ones all the way around and new Continental tires up
>front.  Off he goes on a trip.  Well, the steering is screwy now.  The
>steering wheel won't return and the bus feels strange in the turn, like
>it's slow to start turning, then wants to turn "extra" in the turn, then
>the wheel won't come back.  This wasn't happening before, in fact the bus
>was tracking straight and turning fine.  So he's going to take it back to
>the shop that did the work (a VW shop) but they've already told him that
>"it sounds like the steering box."  I know these are expensive buggers and
>my buddy doesn't want to be had.  He's already done the external adjustment
>(the screw thingy) on the outside of the steering box, and that didn't fix
>it.
>
>Could new ball joints all around cause a new problem with the steering box?
>What else could cause this kind of behavior?  Does he need to do the shim
>adjustment to the steering box?  Anyone done this?
>
>Cheers!
>Bill
>
>(could someone forward this to the vanagon/bus list for me?  I don't
>subscribe to that one.  Thanks!)
>
>William Claspy
>wpc@po.cwru.edu   "Stay cool, calm, collected and crazy"- Wavy Gravy
>