General Maintenance & Repairs - Steering wheel play

Looking for suggestion.

I have a 97 Formula the has a little play in the steering. I can have my son jiggle the wheel slightly and watch the steering shaft going into the rack move right along with the steering wheel.

I have changed
Tie rods inner/outer

And just put in a reman Cardone rack. EXACTLY the same.

I know it is not a rag joint because the steering wheel moves exactly as the input to the rack but the front wheel will not. I am at a loss.

Bad rack? I know you said its new but we wont use Cardone anymore. We have problems with like literally every other one we use in our used cars and always up with a OE or different brand rack. Not knocking them as a company because Ive used plenty of other things they sale, just speaking from experience from their racks.

Looking for suggestion.

I have a 97 Formula the has a little play in the steering. I can have my son jiggle the wheel slightly and watch the steering shaft going into the rack move right along with the steering wheel.

I have changed
Tie rods inner/outer

And just put in a reman Cardone rack. EXACTLY the same.

I know it is not a rag joint because the steering wheel moves exactly as the input to the rack but the front wheel will not. I am at a loss.

OP -

My car was in the exact same boat - I replaced all that you had, and I was 100% sure that the play at the steering wheel was NOT caused by the rag joint - as I could visually observe no issue(s), but I threw $25 bucks of so (can't recall the exact price) to "Overbalanced Engineering" (I think) and I was SO GLAD I DID - all I can say is WOW!

You may just want to re-think your position. (FYI - My original rag joint was so tight I had to use a cut off wheel and cold chisel to get it off!)

I'm glad I did - the steering is now better than it had ever been - I could not be happier.

(My $0.02)

great421 is talking about unbalancedengineering. They sell a rag joint eliminator. It's basically just a piece of aluminum that replaces the fiber disk in the steering linkage.

I want to say there's an adjustment in the rack to take out the play.

I guess if you think about it it makes sense. I will look at this closer tomorrow. I checked this with the car on jackstands while I was under it. If you put weight on the wheels maybe the load on the rag joint may show slop in it.

Thanks guys this gives me a direction to go,

Looked at this today. The steering is good all the way to the rack. No slop at all with the car on the ground, I don't know at this point.

Sounds like slop in the Rack. I know the pre-load is adjustable, but I'm not sure about the slop.

My suggestion is to get the front wheels on jack stands. have someone watch the steering shaft while you try and pull/push the front wheels; see where the slop is. Sometimes attacking it from the other direction helps (IE: wheels to steering wheel instead of steering wheel to wheels.)