Hello all! First post here on the forums, hope anyone could help me understand exactly what happened to me yesterday

Starting a few months ago I started buying all the parts to do a manual tranny swap, after getting everything and waiting for my mechanic to be free to do the swap, Christmas day my engine, sadly, threw a rod right through the back of the block So, I got a new (used) engine and went ahead with the tranny swap while we had the whole front end dropped. Got the car back a couple of weeks ago, although we kept the steering wheel aligned straight when reconnecting the steering shaft, once set down, noticed that when the steering wheel is turned 90 degrees to the right, that was my wheels straight. At this point I couldn't care less, I was ready to drive. This past Friday my mechanic calls saying I owe $1300 for labor, no problem, swing over Saturday to drop him the cash and went ahead and tried to realign the steering wheel to the wheels. Once again, after dropping the car down, the steering wheel 45 degrees to the left was now my wheels straight... So what, right? Atleast at this point I could actually see my speedo! I live in Memphis, TN, some of you may know, traffic here is terrible at 6pm. Yesterday, leaving work in this terrible traffic, I come off a red light driving regularly, go to merge into the left lane and mid-way through my merge, the steering wheel left the building, just spinning freely, leaving me to stop in the middle of Germantown Parkway, flashers on, listening to chopin and smoking a cigar... After sitting in the middle of this chaos for about 5 minutes just trying to confirm that this really happened, I called my mechanic, he comes in the middle of the road and checks everything out quickly, only to say it was nothing he messed with and had to be something in the steering wheel that has come loose or broken. All I could collect from this in the hour and a half waiting for a tow truck was:

1. My airbag light came on.

2. If the steering wheel is spun around I could hear a clicking.


Could this have truly been a coincidence? What exactly could have happened?

 

was the subframe or steering rack removed during the install? did he remove steering tie rods? knuckles? he had to have moved some suspension to pull the axles out of the transmission. the steering wheel centering shouldn't have changed by that much. are you saying you have no steering now?

to re center a steering wheel, you need to take out the airbag, take out the nut that holds the steering wheel on the column, and just re center it. make sure you have the srs airbag clockspring centered also or else it will pull some wires or break when you turn. so check the steering linkages and steering system to make sure everything is good before centering the steering wheel.

 

When you do get it working, make sure you can turn your wheel the same amount of rotation both ways. If not, the mechanic didn't align the steering rod correctly and just repositioning the wheel itself is not an actual fix.

 

sounds like he dropped the subframe and the rack came loose from the shaft and he didn't notice so it was barely making contact with the pinion. whatever it is its HIS FAULT. ___ like that doesn't just happen out of nowhere. maybe he stripped the spline on the pinion trying to put it back together.

 

mchanics fault for sure. take it back and make him fix it