My brother was t-boned in his bronco back in May. Drunk older woman in a cadillac crumpled some of the body right at the driver's side door (this was an accident that completely renewed my family's love for the bronco, most other cars my brother would have been seriously injured or killed, walked away without a scratch on him). Insurance had the damage repaired at a local body shop we have come to trust, appearance-wise the car looks great. However since getting it back he has been experiencing a weird problem...

When he is making a right turn, even just a few degrees on the steering wheel, he gets a bad noise. He always has some rubbing issues due to the 32 or 33s (cant remember which) the he has on there. This sounds a lot like rubbing, only much louder, and at such small turning amounts that there is no possible way it is rubbing. The car is a 96 bronco eb, with the 351, and no lift or anything, we would love for this car to be running at its beautiful prime again and really want to get this fixed. Any ideas? It sounds to me almost like the steering column is rubbing against something, although it doesnt look like it. Could it possibly be something wrong with the steering box? Im not positive that the accident or repair work are at a fault here, but the problem started happening the day he got it back from the shop and never happened prior to the accident. Any help or ideas anybody can give would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you,
Jeff

 

Sounds like something that may have been put back together and is now in a slightly different location than it had been prior to the accident. Best bet would be to lift the front end of the truck one wheel at a time with the steering in the approximate position where the symptoms are noticed and slowly spin the lifted wheel. Be sure you lift the truck by the front axle on the side you are testing so that the suspension does not drop and possibly eliminate the rubbing that you are experiencing. If you can get both sides of the front axle on a pair of jackstands to do this, you can check both wheels at once and turn the steering to pinpoint exactly where the problem starts and through what range of motion it remains a problem. Be sure to chock the rear wheels and set the parking brake when you do this.

 

good call on that one, probably would have just kept turning and turning on the ground and looking around, I will check it out as soon as possible. My biggest concern is that it is on the passenger side, and the collission occured on the driver's side, so I would be somewhat surprised to see them tearing much apart in the suspension/steering on the passenger side of the vehicle. Ill post back if I figure it out.

Thanks,
Jeff