sloppy steering help
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Joined: Dec 2010
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sloppy steering help
Hey all,
I have a few days off work to play with the truck, and I'd like to tighten up the steering a bit. It's pretty sloppy. I have to keep the wheel moving back and forth to keep the truck straight. I tried to check the ball joints and tie rod ends, and couldn't detect any movement there. I'm gonna check again tomorrow, but they seemed tight when I tried moving the tires with the truck jacked up. It's got a three or four inch rancho suspension lift with the stock pitman arm so my steering geometry may be a bit steep. My question is, how do I know if I need a drop arm, and if so how do I know how much drop I need and who sells them. I will post pics of my front end tomorrow ( gotta upgrade my membership ), but I wanted to get yall's advice and find out if there's anything else I should check before I do this or while I'm messing with the steering and suspension up front. Ive never messed with any of this stuff, so im relying on you guys and the Haynes manual for guidance.
Thanks for the help.
JP
I have a few days off work to play with the truck, and I'd like to tighten up the steering a bit. It's pretty sloppy. I have to keep the wheel moving back and forth to keep the truck straight. I tried to check the ball joints and tie rod ends, and couldn't detect any movement there. I'm gonna check again tomorrow, but they seemed tight when I tried moving the tires with the truck jacked up. It's got a three or four inch rancho suspension lift with the stock pitman arm so my steering geometry may be a bit steep. My question is, how do I know if I need a drop arm, and if so how do I know how much drop I need and who sells them. I will post pics of my front end tomorrow ( gotta upgrade my membership ), but I wanted to get yall's advice and find out if there's anything else I should check before I do this or while I'm messing with the steering and suspension up front. Ive never messed with any of this stuff, so im relying on you guys and the Haynes manual for guidance.
Thanks for the help.
JP
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 57,005
Likes: 2,750
From: Virginia
If you have the suspension lift, you need the drop pitman arm. You can tell this by the type of road you are driving on. If you are on a perfectly flat smooth road, and you are not fighting the steering wheel, but when you get on a road with dips and bumps and you end up correcting the truck back into the road, then that's called bumpsteer, and it's caused by the geometry in the steering linkage being wrong. The geometry is wrong because one end of the steering was dropped 3 or 4 inches, while the other end(pitman arm) was not.
You also need to check the bolts that attach the drop down brackets in the center of the front crossmember. These are the longer brackets that the suspension beams bolt to, and the bolts way up in the top that fasten the brackets to the crossmember like to get loose.
You also need to check the bolts that attach the drop down brackets in the center of the front crossmember. These are the longer brackets that the suspension beams bolt to, and the bolts way up in the top that fasten the brackets to the crossmember like to get loose.
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