New IDI, steering issue!

[motox tech]

Just to give brief update (not that anyone cares) I used to frequent this site a lot! But, I have been through a bunch of vehicles since then! The pic in my avatar has been ancient history to me for a while! Since that I had an 03 dodge 3500 cummins, a 98 12v cummins, and I bought a ford 6.0 (nightmare) and finally converted it to a cummins as well! I have sold all of these vehicles for the simple fact that I made a pretty good profit on them! (If the 03 ford cummins had been manual tranny, i would have driven till the wheels fell off) Now my good pickup is a 2000 7.3 350 crew cab, and finally my point to all this rambling!! I just returned to the IDI world and purchased a 92 7.3 n/a extended cab, and am pretty excited about it. (have missed my obs since i sold my 94) I do have some issues i need you alls help with on this ol girl though! For starters the steering wheel grinds and pops when its turned, which doesn't seem to affect it on the open road, but sound like things are coming apart when turning around. Any ideas on that, or has anyone experienced this? Also, my memory is slipping a little on the ins and outs of these Idis and was thinking maybe you all could give me some, "hey did you check this" Ideas! Any help appreciated!! Thanx guys, its good to be back!

 

[sjwelds]

does your steering wheel move laterally at all? I experienced some issues like that on mine here a while back. it was the bearings inside the steering column. the Ford dealer actually had them in stock. there's an upper and a lower bearing. turns as smooth as glass now and I try not to use the steering wheel as a handle to get in the truck

 

[oregon96psd]

^^^^ This is your problem. There's a reason the dealer stocked them. lol Steering wheel is not a handle...also true.

 

[motox tech]

Thanks guys, ill check it out! Is it hard to get to the bearings? Ive switched entire columns out but never disected one!

 

[sjwelds]

well the way o recall it was fairly straight forward... mine wasn't a tilt column so don't know if that makes much diff. I found a really good how to over on FTE somewhere. u might do some searching and see what you can find

 

[motox tech]

A friend of mine drove my truck today and said the clock spring was bad! Does any one know if the 92 has a clock spring? All I can find are the ones for airbag type column!