Tightening up Steering

[BrianX128]

Anyone ever break the big nut loose on the steering box and turn the threaded part in a half a turn and lock it back down? My 90 f350 [2wd] is going to need new tires and I figured I'd get it aligned as the outer edge or the passenger tire is wearing more than the rest up front. I then noticed I can turn my wheel from 12 to 1 or 12 to 11 without it really doing anything. Steering shaft is turning, its just not tight in the box. I've seen videos of people tightening them some with the wheel straight to remove that play. It's definitely the box too, pitman arm and linkage are all tight. I could just replace it I guess but wasn't sure if this was worth trying since it's not crazy bad yet. I've had an older 150 that you could turn the wheel from 12 to like.. 9 or 12 to 3 without it engaging, that was scary.

 

[Austin86250]

you could try that, what i would do is make a mark of where it is before you move the screw so if tightening makes it worse you can always just put it back to its original spot

 

[WrenchWhore]

I've done this before but usually when I've done it i've taken the TRE off the pitman arm and felt the play then kept tightening the screw until it was gone then backed it off a 1/4 turn. If I couldn't turn the pitman by hand lock to lock it was too much and backed it off more.

 

[BrianX128]

So I broke the locking nut free, my center stud has a flat head screwdriver slot, I held it all at 12 o'clock and tightened it to 4 ish and everything feels tighter now. I locked it down there and turned the wheel with the truck running just sitting in the garage, I don't feel any binding and if I have it the entire way turned left or right it will start to return to center without the truck moving. I'm gonna test it on some back roads before I'd go on the highway, I probably could have tightened another 1/4 turn but figured it was better not to at this point. I'm just trying to get it through the rest of summer and fall. This truck never sees winter and I'll have plenty of time to put a new box on if I need to while rebuilding my zero turn engine this winter lol..

 

[captain720]

I recommend redheads steering gears. And check the rag joint

 

[WrenchWhore]

I recommend redheads steering gears. And check the rag joint

I agree the Readhead steering gears are a great product. At the old shop I used to work for when a customer wanted a new box we'd swap them out with reman boxes but more often then not these had more play in them than the box we replaced. We ended up only replacing steering boxes with brand new units that usually costed about 700-800 from the dealer. The good news was it had no play and felt like a brand new truck again but that price tag was insane. I believe boxes for our trucks are about 300 plus the $175 core charge from Redhead which isn't bad since reman boxes can easily get up to that price. I would also not recommend rebuilder shops unless you know they know what they're doing. I had my 84 idi steering gear rebuilt at a local rebuilder when I lived in CA and it had to return the box to have it rebuilt 3 times and it never actually stopped leaking. First time I installed it it blew out the bottom seal and dumped all the ATF I had put in it. Looked like a murder scene. second time it did the same thing only half as bad. After driving back and forth and all the failures I just gave up after the third time since it had a small leak as well. I called the guy and he said to bring it back and I was just like F*** N*. NOPE. NEVER. AGAIN.