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I left the house this morning to run errands and had to drive to the next town 30 miles away and I had a bad feeling for some reason. As I got on the highway I noticed a little more play in my steering than usual but nothing crazy. When I got to town I checked my castle nut on the driver side pitman and it was intact along with the cotter pin so I thought nothing of it and went about my business. On the way home I could tell it was getting worse and just figured I’d check my adjustment on the steering box when O got home. As I was driving doen the gravel road to my house my steering wheel went slack and the wheels steered me into the ditch at 10mph. By passenger side castle nut was gone and the lower end of the tie rod was on the ground! I pulled it back into the hole and zip tied it to limp the rest of my quarter mile driveway home.
Just last week I adjusted my track bar length after X and Mod C spring install and had to drop the driver side of the tie rod to access the lower track bar bolt but never touched the steering castle nut on that end.
Moral of the story- if ANYTHING feels odd with your steering make sure you check everything and don’t be a numbskull like me and only check the side you worked on last!
Trusty zip tie!
No nut...
This is how it looked when the nut backed completely out and the arm dropped while cruising down my driveway.
***UPDATE***
I was headed to the stealership to buy a castle nut and pin and what do you know?!? The nut was laying on the road right inside my first cattle guard. It rattled off the last couple of threads as I drove in.
I can’t believe it finally fell off just inside my gate.
how long ago did somebody else’s work on it that would have left the cotter pin out ?
I dropped the top end two weeks ago to get to the lower track bar bolt but did not mess with the lower tie rod nut. It must have been since before I bought it almost three years ago. I should have caught that while I was checking everything under there after my spring install.
I did take it to an alignment ahop after that but their machine was not able to hook up to my wheels so they just checked everything and said it was all tight.
