there is play with my steering.the wheels like to drift to the left by themselves sometimes. where do i begin looking to diagnose the problem?

 

The idler arm and tie rods.

 

don't overlook the steering gear box.

 

go look at the frount wheels and try to shake them ( or move one and not the other) if you can move one of them its eather tie rod end is loose or your rack and pinon (that prob. dident make scence sorry )

 

i cheked and no play in wheels but found that the steering wheel/column down to gear box does. feels like something just needs to be tightened or somthing. what could be wrong

 

He has no rack and pinion in an 89. Early IFS uses a gearbox with pitman/idler arm/centerlink design.

It is the crappiest design ever. If only toyota knew then what it knows now.

 

I remember a long time ago around 1990 I had a 1983 Camaro Z28 with a borg warner 5 speed in it with that same problem. It had a screw on the power steering gear box to adjust the sensitivity, well it ended up being adjusted too much and the pressure from the mechanism stripped it plum out to the point of USELESS. Ended up getting another psbox and it seemed fine afterwards...