I just replaced the tie rod ends on my 93 F-250. My truck still tracks nice and straight and drives fine, but now my steering wheel is cocked to the left. Is there a way to straighten it out without pulling it off to reposition it?

 

uhm no not really......

 

i had the same problem with my 95 after i rebuilt the front end. the way we fixed it:
-put the front end on jack stands.
-find where steering shaft comes out the firewall and follow it to the steering coupler
-take out the bolt on the steering coupler and the shaft should slide right out
-make sure wheels and steering wheel are straight
-carefully put the steering shaft back in the coupler and replace bolt

worked for me. seems like a lot of work, but its easier than removing the steering wheel. with 2 people it goes pretty quick. me n my dad had it done in 30 min or so

good luck

 

Sycostang67,

The shop that replaced the tie-rod ends, then realigned the front end, should have adjusted the sector shaft on the steering gear box to make the truck track straight and bring the steering wheel to center. As you already know it is impossible to turn the steering wheel on the shaft. It fits only one way.

I've never aligned any car or replaced any drag-links, tie rods, ... . I don't have the equipment to do it right and get everything to line up and track straight.

 

I changed the tie rod ends myself, one of them was really worn out and I was afraid it might let go. I still plan on changing all the bushings so I dont want to waste the money on an alignment just yet. If the steering wheel only fits on the shaft one way, I may have to pop off the pitman arm to set it straight. I'll see if I can find what A1C is referring to though.

 

I have to do this stuff rather often as people I replace steering components for are usually too cheap to get proper alignment - what you need to do is shorten one of your steering links, and then stretch the other side with the same length - for instance your wheel is cocked to the left about 30 degrees, to center it you need to turn the passenger-side adjuster sleeve 1/4 turn to 1/2 turn so that the tierod shortens up a bit, then turn the driver-side adjuster sleeve the exact same amount of turns but so that overall tierod length increases. Makes sense? By turning both sleeves equal number of turns you're only moving the steering wheel, without changing the toe setting of the front wheels - which is not to say that the toe is right too, as the trucl may still drive straight even with the toe too much in or too much out, you'll have to watch the tires for irregular wear patterns to know what's going on. Right now I'm doing that same job on my friend's Blazer, drives straight like an arrow but wheel was off to the left quite a bit, I readjusted the tierods half a turn (stretch the left and shorten the right one) and overshot so now the wheel is off a bit to the right, however because the truck has a slight tendency to veer at freeway speeds I have the gut feeling she needs a bit more toe in - tomorrow I'll shorten the left tierod only by 1/4 turn, this should both center the wheel and bring the toe in for more stable tracking...

 

Hey, that works. In order to prevent my head from exploding by thinking about this too much, will I spin both sleeves the same direction or opposite of each other to accomplish this? I noticed the driver side tie rod was reverse threaded and the passenger side was standard. Your example was right on too, my wheel is cocked about 4-5" to the left.

I dont plan on leaving the truck like this for too long, I will be ordering new springs bushings, pivot bushings and an add-a-leaf for the front so I can install my homemade bumper then get it aligned. When the alignment costs $150, I dont want to have to do it any more often than I need to. Normally I wouldn't worry too much about the steering wheel, but it's in the perfect postion to make using my turn signals difficult.

 

Yeah just center the wheel then set the toe to spec . You should never have to remove the steering wheel ....Lew

 

Oh, well that I don't remember - if your sleeves are anything like mine that turning them both in the same direction (both forward or both backwards) should result in both tierods stretching or shortening, in which case you'll need to turn one sleeve forward and the other backwards to accomplish what you need to straighten the wheel, but without actually having seen your tierods close-up I can't tell you which sleeve to turn in which direction. But you are correct in that both ends of the tierods that go into the sleeves are threaded in opposite directions - if they were not you'd have to disconnect the tierod end off the steering knuckle and turn the end itself every time you needed to do changes to the tierod length...

 

To do it right it needs to be on an alighnment rack , then just lock the steering wheel straight & lenghten or shorten each tie rod untill the tow is in spec....Lew

 

But the goal here is to make the truck less annoying to drive until he gets the professional alignment done... And since you mentioned it - do these steering wheels actually lock in the straight-ahead position? Mine don't lock at all (I absolutely despise the cluster-effed design of the lock cylinder linkages), so I really don't know if they do..

 

Yeah he just needs to get it close till hes ready for the algihnment , yeah don't use the steering wheel lock , they use a tool that comes up from the floor that holds the wheel straight while they adjust the toe ...or you can just have someone hold it ...

 

I'm not sure if it locks straight up. I'll probably get a few friends to help, one person to watch the wheel and another to help me turn the sleeves simultaneoulsy.

I was also thinking that since I know the alignment guy at Les Schwab pretty well, I may be able to talk him into putting the truck on the rack real quick just to check the toe adjustment. I'll be ordering my spring and pivot bushings on monday, but may be a month before I have money for the springs. I'll most likely just install everything at once though, mount my bumper and then get it aligned.

 

Thats a good tip

 

If it were my truck, I wouldn't worry about it until you finish rebuilding the front end and get it all aligned.