So I've been hearing a clunk in my steering wheel whenever I turn the steering wheel side-to-side at KOEO, and especially I have a loose steering wheel whenever I drive on the freeway, making me grip the wheel hard and have my elbows rested on the side bolstering on the seats. I knew something was wrong with my steering rack, and I thought of replacing the whole thing, but I heard you have to drop the subframe partially to get it out. I then came across the steering rack adjustment in the repair manual and on this forum post for the RHD versions of our cars. I've actually held off on this adjustment for a while because you need a special 40mm wrench from Honda, but I used a pair of channel locks to do this.
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To do this adjustment, take out the driver side wheel. Try to have a paint marker and mark it through the subframe, over the anti-sway bar. You have to remove the locknut with channel locks on the rack and back out the 3/8" screw. To take out the screw, I had a setup like this: 2 extensions on a small ratchet with a u-joint. Two things will fall out when you take out the screw: the guide itself and a spring. I regreased them when I reinstalled everything.
![Hand Arm Gesture Finger Font]()
Once you take out the screw along with the locknut, separate both of them and clean the threads, then apply RTV on the middle of the threads on the screw (the manual calls for Three Bond 1215 or Loctite 5699, but I used ultra black permatex). Then you tighten the screw to 18 ft/lbs and loosen it. The manual didn't state how much you needed to back it off, I did about 2 full turns. Then the manual says to tighten it back at 4 ft/lbs, back it off to 15 degrees, and lock the locknut. I used my finger to push the ratchet until I felt resistance.
Once I did this, the steering was way too loose.
Luckily I was doing this on a rack, I could tighten it some more little by little until I thought it was fine, but I ran out of time. On my final adjustment, I felt the spring pushing back, and I tightened about 1/8th of a turn more. I don't hear a clunk when I'm moving the steering wheel side to side at rest. But now the rack was too tight on straights that felt like a BMW, but it felt great on turns.
To do this adjustment, take out the driver side wheel. Try to have a paint marker and mark it through the subframe, over the anti-sway bar. You have to remove the locknut with channel locks on the rack and back out the 3/8" screw. To take out the screw, I had a setup like this: 2 extensions on a small ratchet with a u-joint. Two things will fall out when you take out the screw: the guide itself and a spring. I regreased them when I reinstalled everything.
Once you take out the screw along with the locknut, separate both of them and clean the threads, then apply RTV on the middle of the threads on the screw (the manual calls for Three Bond 1215 or Loctite 5699, but I used ultra black permatex). Then you tighten the screw to 18 ft/lbs and loosen it. The manual didn't state how much you needed to back it off, I did about 2 full turns. Then the manual says to tighten it back at 4 ft/lbs, back it off to 15 degrees, and lock the locknut. I used my finger to push the ratchet until I felt resistance.
Once I did this, the steering was way too loose.
Luckily I was doing this on a rack, I could tighten it some more little by little until I thought it was fine, but I ran out of time. On my final adjustment, I felt the spring pushing back, and I tightened about 1/8th of a turn more. I don't hear a clunk when I'm moving the steering wheel side to side at rest. But now the rack was too tight on straights that felt like a BMW, but it felt great on turns.
