Ok,, was hunting early Dec. got a little hard on the skinny pedal going up a muddy snowy grade, came out of the ruts, hit a rock on the side, dinged rim, blew bead, and now my steering is off. I think I bent the arm on the drivers side knuckle,,, not sure what it is called to look it up. I can turn nice and tight to the right, but left turn is limited, and steering wheel is off, can't find any other damage.
thanks
Joe

 

It looks to me like the inner tie rod is what is bent.

 

Maybe it's just the pics, and I know tie rods have bends in them. However it sure looks like you have an extra one to the left of the adjustment sleeve.

 

Hmmm... tie-rod does have a bend,,, it looked correct, like it goes around the front of the D44, going to have to look some more.

 

Keepin mind stock tie rods are usually the weakest link. This is due to them being solid steel. That's why most aftermarket off road tie rods are dom tubing. Tubing is a lot more bend resistant then solid steel.

 

I think before you bend your "steering arm", something else would bend or break? Like the mount bolts.

Insp the fixed link going from it to the pitman arm. X2 on the tie rod looking bent. Inst steering shaft and gear box for obvious damage??

 

Are you talking about the big cast banana shaped piece? No, you didn't bend that. That's the steering arm that connects to the pitman. It's supposed to look like that.

 

Thanks gents, I know the steering arm and tie-rod both have factory bends, I will climb under again and really take a better look, upon first inspection, nothing looked to be bent, however, my steering wheel is off now along with limited left hand turning radius. I blew a bead and bent right side rim,,,.

 

Since the impact happened on the right front wheel. How about adding some pics of the right side. X2 on inspecting the sector shaft of the steering gear box. It's the shaft that the pitman arm mounts too. Check to make sure that the splines aren't twisted. FWIW you may have to remove the pitman arm to thoroughly check this. Otherwise you may have to take the truck to a good alignment shop to find out what exactly is damaged.

 

As many accidents hit the wheels and do what you describe, at times I have unhooked some part of the steering linkage. Usually the easiest part would be to drop one tie rod end,THEN manually align the tires/wheels to the front (jack up front end first),center the steering wheel if possible and start looking things over to see what does not line up.
If,say, left wheel is straight ahead and the steering wheel is centered and the RIGHT wheel is pointing in or out, then start looking for accident caused stuff on the right side.
Or,both tie rods dropped,align wheels/tires and center steering wheel then look underneath to see what does not line up if you were to put the tie rods back in place.
Part of the detective work in an accident which is not cut and dry as a bend or kink on one side will affect both sides and throw you off in finding the problem.
You need to start unhooking things and isolating. Good luck! Gary

 

Check where the rag joint goes into the steering box. I've seen those shear or jump teeth, causing issues as you've described.

 

OP has a F250 so no rag joint, that is a F150 item. The 4x4 F250 steering shaft does have a mini u joint though.

 

Just plan all your trips to make right turns only.

 

That really depends on the strength of the material and the size of the solid bar or size of the tubing.


But regardless, I agree the tie rod would bend before the factory steering arm.

 

Have you checked the splines on the output shaft? Sometime it will twist this shaft.