Hi all...Betty, my 86 F350 4x4, has some weird steering problems, and I wonder if anyone can help with it.

Steering is not really loose, though sometimes it acts like it. There is no "dead zone" where you move the wheel and nothing happens, BUT, the neutral point in the steering (straight ahead) seems to move around...sometimes the wheel is centered, and sometimes it is as much as 45 degrees of wheel turn to the left.

Stranger still, acceleration and deceleration effect it greatly. Hard breaking pulls dramatically to the right (needs front brakes, so that will probably help), hard acceleration pulls to the left. Even mild decceleration with no breaking makes it want to go right. Starting from a stoplight is interesting; Accelerate in second gear while steering right to counter the left pull, put in the clutch to shift to third while steering left to counter the mild decceleration (or lack of acceleration), then clutch out into third while steering right again...repeat to get into fourth.

It has some larger tires on it, 305/70R16s...when I got a flat and had a "normal " sized spare on it, it was really weird and didn't want to go straight at all, but now with four same sized tires again, it acts like the above paragraph.

The other thing it does, is that it turns right MUCH better than left. Someone prior to me lifted it, looks like about 4 inches. From neutral/straight ahead, the wheel makes 1 3/4 turns to the left, or 2 1/4 turns to the right. I wonder if the lift afffected it, and how I can fix it?

 

You have a lot of factors that could affect steering and there may be several problems interacting. A couple things that come to mind to address a small part of the problems are 1) is the steering gear box falling off the frame (I had a car like that once and it was wandering all over the road), and 2) is the steering gear box worn out and exhibiting excessive play? There should be a screw to tighten the box and reduce play (well, at least my '77 that did not have power steering has such a screw). Other than that, all the linkages should be inspected, the ball joints, the tie-rod ends, the spring mounts, axel mounts, etc.

 

Thanks Paul, I'll look for that scew to tighten the box. The tie rod ends are all pretty and ball joints are a little worn, but pretty good, and the gearbox is tight...and tight to the frame. I did find one big surprise, though, the adjuster sleeve on the drag link was loose! I tightened it up, and things are much better now.

 

Glad to hear it! Happy Ford truckin!