The splines can only wear if the nut is loose. That's like saying your fender got worn out by rubbing it on a tree. I could argue that tires do have moving parts, at least more so than a pitman arm.

 

Any splined attachment is subject to wear. The softer of the two metals (in this case, the pitman arm) will be the "loser". In the OP's case, no biggie; a new pitman arm on the new steering box will save the shop the trouble of pulling the old pitman from the old shaft.

AAA should consider recouping their losses by entering that tow truck driver in some tough guy competitions.....

 

Gotta say that is pretty impressive on the part of AAA. Also glad to see you are doing the right thing by replacing your worn pitman arm.

 

That is a 1st I have ever heard of a pitman arm wearing. Typical they fit SO tight you can't get them off.

I work on tractors all the time and their spindles and steering arms splines wear all the time from the nut working loose allowing play. But that is from the nut coming loose that caused the wear

 

I suspect the shop just figured it would be easier to replace it. They can be tough to get off. Maybe they don't have a good pitman arm puller. I bet they charge labor to replace it even though it is less work. Hopefully they don't use a pickle fork to separate it from the steering linkage.

 

The replacement of my pitman arm seams to have caused some debate. I personally don't know a whole lot about it, so unfortunately I have to fall back on the advice of others who do know more. I tend to trust the shop that did the work, so I took their advice. However, I did ask them to leave the old pitman arm in the truck. So, when I get it back (should be tomorrow) I'll take a pic and post it up and you guys can tell me if you think it was a good idea to replace it or not.

That being said... they didn't tell me to replace it just to save labor. They had to remove it from the old steering gear, because the steering gear had to be sent in as a core and I am keeping the old pitman arm.

Anyway, thank you all for your thoughts and help!

 

Ok, the truck is home now and I was able to take a look at the pitman arm. I've attached a few pics here for the experts to look at. Sorry the last one is blurry. I was trying to show inside the hole.







As you can see very well in the second picture, there appears to be damage to one end. I don't know when or how this happened, though I expect it was long before I got the truck as I haven't hit anything with it since I got it. Perhaps this damage is the "wear and tear" that the shop was referring to?

Anyway, it's changed now. So, whether needed or not, I have a new one.

Thanks again to everyone who chimed in with help and suggestions along the way!

 

Looks like someone took a torch to it trying to pop it off with heat and over done it! That's probly why they said it needed to be replaced.....

 

IS that all that they replaced or did they also replace the steering box?

In that pic, that is a melt mark from a torch. That is NOT "wear" and if it was there before AAA touched the truck, it was not AAA fault

 

I do not know whether or not the torch mark was there prior to AAA damaging my truck. But, that is not what they broke or paid to replace. They broke the steering gear. The pitman arm was something the shop said needed replacement so I had them do it at the same time.

 

Personally by the pic I would say the shop put a torch on it otherwise it wasn't like that very long. Their isn't a lot of road grime or dirt on it and the burns don't look to old.


I agree with eddie that they probably tried heating it to break it loose and ended up melting it instead.


However I would be glad the shop said something about replacing as a lot of shops would have just stuck it on their and that would have been really dangerous. Next thing you know you could have been going down the road without steering.
Trav

 

I would thank AAA for discovering a broken steering box that was one pothole fron throwing you in a ditch.
There is zero way you can break a good steeringbox with hand pressure.

I would also change the title of this thread to "AAA saved me from imminent death from losing my steering"

Your steering box sees hundreds of ftlbs of torque while driving.

 

Loke i said, they probably dont have a puller.

 

A shop with no pitman puller? Sounds like shadetree repairs inc.

 

Or they may have had a puller before they tried using it on the rust-welded OBS arm. Now they have a pile of broken parts that used to be a puller.

I learned long ago from pro mechanics that you just go ahead and replace the Pittman arm on a steering box with the box if you had a choice. Often the value of amount of labor needed to pull the old one off exceeds the price of a new arm.