I've given my dad links to the thread here, so he can do as he pleases, lol.

I'll pass that on to him anyways, and if he doesn't get around to it, I'll troubleshoot it on my own later.

-edit-

Totally forgot to even post what he was saying.


The wheel is trying to jerk itself free of his hands, I guess rip out of his hands would be a bit drastic, when he's hitting bumps, chucks, or rough stuff in the road.

Says it still tracks good, just feels 'froggy' in his words, as I've replicated in the OP. Basically, just not steady or planted over bumps. Sounds more like struts than anything, but it could very well be the inner tie rods and struts working together to make the issue.

 

yes they alll act like that after time ,shocks should help tires ,the car dont like bumps even a new one ,there not like trucks made to handle the bumps ,though if you ever drove a 90s Dodge pick up ,my brother had one you needed a kiddney belt ,just to drive it down regular roads ,so to me these cars are smooth compared to any truck,some of the low rideing suvs ,are good for bumpy roads,on certain spots mine feel like it need shocks too ,rear sway bar ,i try to avoid the dirt roads all together those tear these cars up ,an i think someone drove it down some nasty dirt roads the 3800 an i can tell in a few spots the ground effects is cracked an at the wheel wells turned black the car looks grea when you go over it with fine tooth comb you notice ,now the cars in good hands some pople dont have a clue how to take care of a car where to take it an not ,my 95 has never seen a dirt road as far as i have owned it ,an now no rain in 2 years couse its so clean i want to keep it that way,so yes shocks make a diffrence i did the rear ones feels tighter on the 95

 

Alright, so that's basically somewhat normal is what you're saying.
I don't think I'm going to fiddle around with swapping out the rack and pinion, as there's no play in the steering at all with the wheel; it's got immediate response when you give it even a little bit of input left or right. Tie rods, both inner and outer ends, will get replaced with MOOG stuff just to be sure.

Rear shocks, and front struts are going to get swapped out for *undecided now* stuff though. I think my father was going to try replacing everything up front from the mounts to the struts themselves, which isn't a bad idea. The car is fairly old, and I forget that time-to-time.

Bad thing is, I thought he was just doing most of this himself, and now after talking to him, he tried taking it to some shops around the area. That didn't end well for him, because they were quoting him something crazy like $1300 to replace the front struts, associated parts that he wanted to throw at it, and the rear shocks.

He was also trying to swap out the entire strut and spring up front with some drop-in replacements from... Gabriel...? branded drop-ins. I'm not keen on that, because I don't know the spring rate for those. They could very well be the ones that came with the base model V6, and with a funky lighter spring rate, that car is going to feel awful driving around after that.

His argument so far has been that he doesn't want to mess with a spring compressor tool, and it's just easier to drop in the new ones.
While this is true, the tool isn't that bad to use correctly. All of this stuff will end up taking a full day, but it's with my dad and I don't mind spending time with pops.


-----
Also, 95 camaro, the way you break up your sentence structure with seemingly random commas, kills me when I have to read through it, haha.

 

shock quality=drive quality on the 4th gen. bilstein shocks are the best for the buck on these cars that will drive good for long term. koni is top in the top 2. make sure power steering pump is working right. the relief valve on them can go and they dont work when under high pressure. mine was terrible on bumps and turning at slow speed or a stop, under higher pressure.

 

Relief valve... didn't think about that. I'll inform him about it, maybe he'll get around to checking it out. Anything he/I should be looking for to tell if it's on it's way out?

--
edit
--

Thanks again craby, on the real.

Looked up checking it, and off the ACDelco tech help site, it basically stated that if the power steering fluid is dirty/contaminated, it can cause that valve to stop functioning.

Still trying to download the little 1.4 MB PDF out here, will read through it when it's done.

If the relief valve IS indeed inoperative, is that just going to be an entire pump replacement to fix that?


--
second edit
--

Looking around here, can't seem to find any replacement strut bearings. Mine aren't making any funny noises, but where could I find some for future needs?

 

the best kind to buy is the kind that have the strut mount built into it saves time an money on install i think the kind craby mentions like $225.00 a set for front ones ,pictures man pictures let see this bad ride ,,,,,,,,, hehe

 

The ones craby suggested are just the actual shocks from stranoparts. I think there's some that come with some extra hardware, but I don't think I saw in any of the listed pictures that any of the Bilstein or Koni shocks come with strut mounts for up front.


You'll have to wait 35 days for pictures, unfortunately. Still out here underway until sometime November. Might be able to get my father to e-mail a couple of pictures then I can just attach them here, raw.

 

thats because we dont have struts. we have coil over shocks. the shock mount is sold separate. the pump going partially will steer easy conditions but when under harder conditions like at a stop if you try and turn hard its like the power steering is not working. if its gone all the way it will steer like when the engine is not running all the time. yes you have to replace pump. they are all rebuilds now so if your not lucky like me you will go through a few pumps before getting a good one

 

At a stop, you can turn the wheel pretty easily, about on par, if not not a little bit tougher than my truck.

It's definitely not gone all the way, I drove a 93 that was running with a dead pump. That was basically manual steering plus some dead weight, urk.

That doesn't sound encouraging with the pumps being rebuilt, but gotta do what we gotta do.


I'll end up just ordering new moog parts for the mounts then, to go with those Koni STR.T or the SLP Bilstein shocks. The way you make it sound though, the Koni's are going to have a more responsive feel though

 

you can buy the whole set with strut mount like i said 229,00 ebay ,beats the 20 year old ones i got now ,an the 650.00 for blisteen with no spring or strut mount ,an it saves on the intstall too ,its what i will go with ,like said in another thread anything is better then the old ones but yes coil overs ,comeplete struts ,they have another set for around $280.00,if i was going for a performance one kyb is as good as any an alot less then some ,