Re: '90 CQ steering help needed

[Porsray@aol.com]

A few thoughts:

1) You say this came on "Slowly"; are you sure that you did not clobber
a pothole to the extent of throwing it out of alignment?  The "tramlining"
I feel is what the 911 owners call "bump steer", where as the suspension
moves up & down it turns the wheels as well; this is exagerrated if there 
is too much toe-out, as I remember.

2)  Mine (at 106,000 miles of driving through local tank-traps called
"roads")
is also loosening up; have had it realigned twice and after a semi-large
pothole excursion, starts acting up again.  I suspect A-arm bushings if 
you have high & hard mileage.

3) The "clunk" on hard turns is interesting; one possibility is that the
strut
insert (the part that does the actual shock absorbing) is loose in the strut
housing.  This happened to me once on a Porsche 911.

Ray Calvo (porsray@aol.com)
1990 Coupe Quattro

In a message dated 96-10-26 23:53:33 EST, you write:

 My 1990 Coupe quattro is slowly developing a strange and unsettling
 steering tendency: it has quite a bit of free play in the steering, like
 maybe 3/4"-1" either side of dead ahead before the car turns, along with
 what I have heard called "tramlining", where the car feels like it has
 crossed a tram line, on the slightest camber change in the road. It also
 clunks sometimes when I'm turning sharply at low speeds, like pulling
 out of a parallel parking spot.
 
 Any other ideas? TIA.
 
 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 - -
 Ian Duff, 1990 Coupe quattro 20v, Red/Black
 quattro Owners Club member P877
 
 Home: New Bedford, MA, USA
 Work: Charter Systems, Inc., West Newton, MA, USA >>