So I just brought back a 96 F250 for my parents business. Truck has 64,000 on the clock and had a little bit of steering wheel slop. I went in to do the steering box adjustment and found something of interest.

I marked the box/nut/stud with a white paint marker so I know factory settings. I loosened the nut and turned the stud 1/4 turn out. Felt the steering wheel and seemed no change. Did another 1/4 turn out and felt again, no change. Did another 1/4 turn out and no change in the slop and the steering started to get a little funny. So then I went back to factory setting and went 1/4 turn CLOCKWISE with the stud. Steering started to tighten up instantly! Another 1/8 turn CLOCKWISE and all the slop was gone! AAAAAANNNND the steering is as light as a feather! The truck steers much like my 92 crown vic did now. I left it there to see how it goes and all seems good so far.

So it bring up a question. I wonder if the box can be adjust either way to take the slop out (factory adjustment)? I also wonder if the "adjustment done at the factory" depends on who is working that day and which way they adjust the box? Is it ok to adjust the slop out of the sector shaft by adjusting the stud clockwise?


The reason this seems so "correct" to me is because there have been a couple boxes now that seem to have no change or get worse when adjusted counterclockwise. I never tried to adjust clockwise before this one and I am questioning now if some boxes would have been better adjusted "in" instead of "out"?

What is your guys take?


I am very tempted to readjust my X box clockwise now to see what the effects are.

 

Nothing yet? Everyone must be out driving their X's eh?

 

This is a good read and confirms the sector shaft adjustment stud should be turned CLOCKWISE to take the "some" slop out of the steering.

http://www.stangerssite.com/adjustment.html

All these years I've been doing a quick search on here and kept seeing people say adjust the stud CCW. I always wondered if that was totally correct and questioned it when I would see no change in the steering slop when adjusting some boxes.

I'll have to go back and readjust all of our trucks boxes now.

 

thats weird people would say ccw....ive always seen it you tighten the stud down to make it tighter and loosen it out to loosen it.....didnt you get a redhead? or did it go on a different truck?

 

Maybe I was just getting the wrong threads when I searched. It was always a "run in, jump on the net and check" thing. So I never took allot of time to search multiple resources if the CCW adjustment was right or not.

I will have to write it down in the shop.

No I did not get a redhead, my X box wasn't quite loose enough yet to justify the price. I am going to recheck its adjustment today, it may be totally fine yet.

 

When I did mine (V8, 4x4, 124k), I loosened the lock nut, turned the stud clockwise in 1/4 turn increments until I was satisfied with the adjustment, then locked the nut back down.

 

Righty Tighty here too. Loosen the nut the tighten the stud. I did it that way on all my old Toyota trucks and Excursion.

 

Same here, clockwise about a full turn. It's been fine ever since.

 

Clockwise for me too...

Here's the original thread
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/5...-steering.html

I posted a link (post #2) to that thread in Stewart's comprehensive steering thread...

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...mpilation.html

 

Well, I shouldn't ever forget now.

 

I adjusted mine by using black tape on the steering wheel at 9 o'clock with pressure on the steering wheel clockwise & more black tape at the same position with pressure on the steering wheel counterclock wise. This way i could see i had about 3 inches of play/slop in the steering wheel. After loosing the jam nut & turning the screw in about 1 turn, the slop/play was visibly down to an inch! Since then the slop is creeping back to about 2 inches now.

 

Clockwise I tell ya! Clockwise!

 

No we haven't, just you brother.

That you should tighten by turning clockwise!


You should. It'll tighten your steering right up! Especially since you turned it the wrong way the first time!

Stewart

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...l#post10541065

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...l#post10502335

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/6...ml#post5473082

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/9...ml#post8547062

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...ml#post6496085

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...ml#post5712681

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/6...ml#post5153433

Stewart

 

Righty tighty.