My steering has been getting harder and harder to turn and will not return to center from a right turn without manually forcing it to. It has been an intermittent problem until recently the ghost took over and started violently steering back and forth left,right,left,right. It has been parked since then for fear of crashing. I admit I shouldn't have let it get this far but it is what it is.

Pump and fluid are working fine.

I took off my ESOF hub (passenger side) and it fell off with all the internals smashed to pieces. The passenger side wheel u-joints were clanging a bit so I took the wheel bearing and half axle out. Of course now that I have the u-joints up close and personal they seem tight as ever and there is no play in them. The two seals on the half-axle were pretty beat up and I'm wondering if that could've been the source of the play I observed (at the main seal I mean)?

I'm now at a loss as to what the steering problem could be...

I have searched the other posts on this problem but I haven't come upon any with smashed ESOF hubs... any suggestions? Thanks a lot.

 

My guess would be the stub axle ujoints when you say they are tight as ever do you mean you can hardly move them or there is just no play??

 

Its possible I'm not using the correct terminology... the u-joints I am referring to are the ones at the knuckle. By 'tight as ever' I was being sarcastic, meaning I can't get them to clang now that they are on my work bench and out of the truck. In other words, they seem perfectly fine. But that big seal behind the knuckle was a little loose and maybe that was the source of the play. I have a hard time believing that the seal being loose is the source of the steering trouble and what smashed the internals of the ESOF hub....

hmm...

 

The seal wont cause the problems but the ujoint at the knuckle will if their bad. As far as the hub if it was locking on its own due to being in pieces that could cause it I guess. The other issue could be a bad steering gear box valve causing the steering wheel to move on its own.