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Removing the belly pan is, in my opinion, one of the worst thing you can do to a 240, some of which already suffer from substandard wiring. It destroys a lot of things, and it isn't good for the steering knuckles among other things.
Usually this is about the time when someone chimes in with the old story about Uncle Earl and how he drove 700,000 miles with no belly pan and a flat tire, and a rod knock, and that was after seizing his engine solid ten different times while running 140mph with no oil on the interstate... but in reality, Uncle Earl drove 7 miles with a rod knock before it punched a hole in the block and dumped all the oil, 1/10th of a mile with a flat tire, and the belly pan got torn off when he hit the curb that flattened the tire. And Uncle Earl really didn't even have a license or drive a car, and actually maybe there wasn't even an Uncle Earl, but it sounds good on the Brickboard all the same.
Some stories are fine, but it doesn't mean they make good directions, if you get my point. The belly pan came with the car for a reason. Not that I'm giving you a hard time about leaving it off, but if you're debating about putting it on, it is much better to leave it on the car.
With respect to correcting the steering knuckle, our shop usually only lubed them. 90% of the time it corrected the problem at minimal expense. Sometimes it takes several applications to work, but eventually it straightens out. I had a problem with one of my own upper ones on a 1990 240 one time, and that did the trick.
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Chris Herbst, near Chicago.
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