Posted by Keith in Washington [172.68.22.113] on Friday, October 18, 2024 at 12:26:55 :
In Reply to: Steering issue posted by Bill Garland [162.158.155.112] on Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 16:33:41 :
It is always hard to turn the wheels when sitting on hard ground with no forward or reverse movement of the truck. You never said how it felt when you were driving it after the rebuild. If every thing is adjusted to spec and lubricated then you should be OK.
I rebuilt everything in the front end of my trucks and what a difference it made in both steering, tracking and vibrations. I did not have to rebuild my steering boxes as I replaced one with a very low mileage unit and the other was in great shape with 15K miles.
As someone mentioned back off on the steering box adjustment just a trace. Make sure that the steering box is dead center while adjusting as the center of the gear is slightly higher to allow for the extra wear it gets as 90% of the time the steering is within 3/4ths of a turn when driving. Disconnect the drag link from the steering arm. Then turn the steering wheel all the way to the right then turn it lathe way to the left counting the number of turns. Then turn back to the right exactly 1/2 the number of turns to get to dead center. Now adjust the steering box at that point moving the the steering wheel 1/2 turn each way to check the adjustment. No attach the drag link with the wheels pointing straight forward. It should connect with out moving the wheels or steering wheel.
If the steering box is adjusted in a position other than dead center it will be almost impossible to turn it thru dead center as it will be adjusted too tight.