Power Steering Gear Touching Fender

[archangel]

'70 Super Bee (Coronet): Engine out of the car. I am redoing the front end (suspension/steering). I pulled the factory steering gear, had it rebuilt. I pulled the K-member stripped/painted it. Installed the K-member...went in as expected. I used the original bolts, torqued to 150 ft/lbs. Just the K-member is installed, nothing else installed on it. I installed the steering gear which readily seated flat against it's mount and bolted it in using the original bolts. I was about to the torque the bolts when I noticed that a small area of the steering gear body is touching the inner fender. It seems to be just "resting" against the fender, not really wedged against it. Is this normal?

Striving to create even the smallest gap I loosed the steering gear and tried to coax it away from the fender while tightening up the bolts. Really there was no play though. Okay, onto Plan B. With the steering gear tighten down I loosed up the 4 K-member bolts. I was able to freely move the K-member around ever so slightly (all bolts were just loosened). I thought I was able to create a slight gap but alas once I tightened the K-member back up the gap disappeared.

Note that I had taken lots of pictures before pulling the engine and all of the suspension/steering components but upon reviewing them I did not end up with any that specifically shows whether or not it was touching the inner fender originally.

Seems to me that there should be an air gap to prevent rattling and/or unnecessary vibrations.

 

[pnora]

Pretty much normal and will not cause a noise or vibration. Has been a lot of discussions on that. Some even suggested the repainting might be thicker that factory. Who knows. Do not lose any sleep over it.

 

[archangel]

Roger that. I must have not been searching on the right terms as I did not find anything on the subject. I will torque the steering gear bolts down and move onto reconditioning the control arms.

 

[WileERobby]

That's normal, not to worry.

 

[archangel]

Thanks, truth be told it was bugging me. Great to have this forum as a sanity check.