['81-'85 rear wheel bearings and seals]

Good information. Thanks!

These are the bearings that require you to use a drill press and chisel to remove the collar off the rear axle right?

[Steering pull]

Okay so here's the update. I took the car in this weekend to have the alignment done. (I'll upload the alignment specs later). This seemed to help a little. Although now to drive th car straight the steering wheel has to be cocked a little to the left. The shop (which has a great rep) said that was just due to it being an old car. Are they full of shit though? Is it just that when they did the alignment the steering wheel wasn't dead-on straight? They also told me not to adjust the nut on the steering gear to take any play out of the gear because it will increase the wear, is that true?

The pull is still there although a little better. I'll get the front of the car up this weekend @PaulK and see if that tells me anything. In the mean time I'm going to try to replace all the control arm bushings and then tackle the power steering. Does anyone have a good method for replacing those inner bushings on the control arms? It seems like you almost have to remove the whole control arm.

['Off Idle' Hesitation]

I've had a similar problem with my electronic qjet (82) and taken it apart and replaced all the fiddly parts including the accelerator pump and that didn't seem to help it. Considering you just replaced the fuel pump and filter is it possible the pump is faulty and the fuel pressure is low? Another this is that the qjet off idle circuit could be clogged or maybe there is a vacuum leak that causes for a low vacuum as the throttle plates start to open. Is this only occurring when the engine is cold and goes away once the engine is warmed up? Are cold starts harder than they were before this issue started?

[Steering pull]

Alright, looks like I've got my project list for the weekend. I'll check for the binding in the kingpins.

@hkrew looking at the shop manual it looks like if I remove the end cap on the CV fluid is NOT going to shoot out. Is that correct?

[Steering pull]

I posted this issue on the SDC forum as well, but thought I would ask y'all too since not everyone is on both forums.

However, like any older car it had slowly crept up with some issues that while not prohibitive are certainly not to be ignored. I'm decent with a wrench, but I lack the ability to diagnose the root causes of problems at times. For that I'm hoping some of you can shed some light. Below are the issues and associated details.

Car Details:

1982 Avanti II, 305 sbc, 200r4, Rochester 4-bb electronic choke carb, 57,700 original miles, been in Illinois since 1982 until recently

Well taken care of (I have detailed service bills from 1983 onward)

Car sat in a garage for the past 8ish years only being driven once or twice a year for 2-10 miles total

1). Steering Wheel Pull

Symptoms:

Steering wheel turns to the right when I take my hands off the wheel

Turning right takes substantially less force than turning to the left

After turning right the steering wheel will NOT recenter however when I turn left the steering wheel recenters just fine

Important details:

Control Valve was rebuilt in the early 90s

With the car off there is not excessive play in the steering wheel itself

Brake booster appears to have a small leak as there is fluid of some type that has coated the steering gearbox below

Recently had new tires put on the car (cannot confirm if the problem was there before doing that), however I switched the left/right front tires and it still pulls right.

I've greased all of the steering components (including king pins) and that didn't change anything.

To me this seems like its not just an alignment issue. I did just replace my shocks (with bilsteins) and the pull seemed to become more prominent.

Any ideas as to the root cause? I hate to simply rebuild the whole system without know exactly what I am trying to fix.

My current hypothesis is the the steering gear is not centered properly. It seems like it's 3.25 turns to the right lock and 3.75 turns to the left lock. If you agree with this, how do I go about centering it?