Ok so I just bought my dream truck last week. I've always loved the old 3/4 ton Fords. I got a southern 4WD ext cab, 8' bed. 351 auto. It drove straight as an arrow the first 5 days I had it. One evening I hit a few potholes in the dark. Nothing terrible, nothing that I haven't hit in my wife's minivan. It drove straight the rest of the night. Then the next morning I pull out of my driveway and it's pulling to the right so I figured maybe I had a low front tire. But when I made a left hand turn the truck kept turning when I let go of the wheel to bring it back to center. I had to physically bring it back myself. Then it felt like it was going the other way and I had to bring it back again. It just doesn't seem to want to go down the road straight. I'm constantly fighting the wheel. It will keep pulling so I'm fighting to bring it back and then all of a sudden it jumps back the other way. I don't feel safe driving it all. I've heard it could be dry ball joints, bad axle u-joints, bad tie rod ends, steering gear box. I don't hear any clunking or grinding or rubbing or rattling. It's weird how it all of a sudden seems to want to jump back into place when I'm fighting the steering wheel making me nearly go left of center. I've read a ton of threads on this forum and a lot of them seem to be going to bad axle u-joints or steering gear box. Anyone ever had this issue with a definitive solution on their own truck? I'm getting kind of nervous that I bought a problem

 

I'll bet on dry and/or rusty axle u-joints... The pot hole just aggravated it, axle probably turned about 1/4 turn and got to the point of fighting you all the time...

 

Maybe the alignment (caster) got thrown off?

 

You should be able to rotate the front axle joints by hand in 2wd with the hubs unlocked. A sticking one could only be rotated if it was perfectly straight. Turn the wheels a little and try to turn them

 

Would the front tires have to be off the ground to do this in 2WD?

 

No.tires on the ground.

 

If it has auto hubs, they'll lock when he turns the axle...

 

Ok I'll have to take a look at it. I tried to see if there was any play in the axle u-joint the other day and couldn't feel any. Didn't seem like any wiggle. I bought it would have caps on them but

 

They're manual Mile Marker hubs

 

I've had the same problem with my '08 F250. I read this about dry axle u-joints, and I have to admit, I feel stupid because I didn't realize it had grease fittings on them. I greased them, drove it, and it seems to be getting better, but I guess we'll see. So the axle joints can be a problem even if the hubs aren't locked? I had a mechanic tell me otherwise and I thought he was crazy. Any insights would be great.

 

The axle u-joints at the spindle have to pivot during steering whether or not the axle is turning. Picture the axle not turning, a very stiff u-joint, and the spindle pivoted to steering lock. If that u-joint is sticking, it will want to stay there, and it will take extra effort to move the spindle back straight.

 

It might help the grease work into the joints if you lock your hubs and drive around a little, regrease then repeat. You want to see grease come out of all four seals on the ujoint.

 

My guess is gearbox. I got one from a JY that was like that. If you can find a used one not too difficult to swap.

 

It's easy enough to check the ball joints. Just get a giant set of slip joint pliers and squeeze the stud up into the joint. If it moves around it's bad. Do the same with all the other ball joints/tie rod ends down there. None of them should move.

I've replaced two sets of ball joints on different cars. None of them "banged" or made noise. One was spotted by my alignment shop telling me I needed to fix them before they'd align it. I was in getting an alignment for simple bad tire wear, but boy those were some messed up ball joints. The other set was sloppy steering. I finally had someone turn the wheel back and forth while I climbed underneath to watch a whole bunch of stuff that shouldn't be moving around actually moving around.

I like the dry u joint thing though. I had a bad u joint in the drive shaft of my old van. You could only notice it when flooring it from a standing start. The pins in the joint had warn grooves into it. They'd only "pop" to the next groove making a ton of noise during hard acceleration. Replaced the "lifetime" u joint with one that had grease fittings.