?? so what is my fix ?? I'm assuming the ball joint nut needs to be tight to a certain torque, right ??

 

Yes it most definitely needs to be tight . But it should bottom out on the taper not any other part . I could be possible that you have incorrect ball joints " too small of a taper " allowing it to pull the ball joint in too far . Are the ball joints properly seated in the control arms ?

 

ball joints are bottomed out in the control arm.. these joints came with the control arms, so I'm assuming they are matched. Got them from Jim Weimer Racing parts

 

Was there a thicker spacer washer to go under the castle nut..?

 

 

thickker washer on bottom, thinner on top... and what I read is this just takes up slack between spindle and nut to get the nut up to the cotter pin hole. I talked to my front suspension vendor and he suggested making sure both nuts are torqued to 75# and try again..
did that and everything was smooth.. I smiled. I had a bottle jack under lower control arm to keep the spring from blowing out and killing or decapitating me..
when I relieved the jack the suspension stretched back out and I'm binding again...not as bad... but still. BUT this shouldn't matter should it. ??? if the ball joint bolts are in and torqued.
the spring pressure shouldn't be putting pressure on the spindle should it ??? Dang, I hate being dumb, and old... and broke down...

but tomorrow I'm headed to Emerald Coast Cruisin show and leave this for the return trip !!

 

You keep going to these shows you'll never finish that truck...lol

 

yeh, I know... might be the closest I get to a driver !!! Talked to suspension guy again and he asked how loose my ball joint shafts were. Told him they moved but were stiff.. (been sitting too long) He suggested removing them and cleaning all the grease and gunk out of them till they moved easily ... so on return that will be first chore... to clean and regrease and try again...

 

guess this is page 3, Harvey fans. got back from the car show... good show btw. had several chores waiting on me... vent pipe on roof leaking, had to re-deck (and paint of course) a utility trailer, had a tree down that needed to be dealt with but now back to sticky steering.

I went ahead and ordered new ball joints and boots. They were waiting on me returning from car show. I had removed the old ones and found the bolt so stiff I couldn't move it in the joint.. tried cleaning out old grease and pumping in new grease but made little difference in the stiffness. The new joints while tight, are much easier to move than the old. Lesson learned, don't wait 15 years to work on them.. I might cut one open to see what the guts look like, in my spare time.

Installed new ball joints, cups and torqued to spec. 125# on the ball joint in the a-arm...90# on the lower spindle nut... 70# on the upper nut and 50# on the tie rod end. Funny aside here. Ball joints are not a standard hex head but some odd square head with the corners cut off. Didn't have a socket for that !! checked with my neighbor and dug thru his cabinet of a gazillion sockets and found a "ball joint" socket... perfect fit !!! He had it marked 'special' and had no idea what it was for. This guy had 3-4 times the tools I have and I'm pretty tooled up.

Anyway I tried turning the spindle before attaching the tie rod and every thing is easy and smooth. After attaching the tie rod ends, things got exponentially harder and I could not get a "stop to stop" rotation on either side.
BTW I checked the steering u-joints too and nothing is binding... sooooo

I'm down to the pump and the rack. How to test them ??? If I disconnect the tie rod ends again and let them hang and turn the steering wheel will the pump push the tie rods out of the rack ??? or are they secured inside the rack. I don't want to start blowing tie rods around in the shop. If they will stay in, I'm thinking I 'should" see/feel a smooth motion as I turn the steering wheel, right ?? Don't know how else to check it.

AFA the pump... it's a Saginaw pump and I did install the pressure reducer hicky...

Is there a way to check the pressure/whatever of the pump that is doable at home ???

Process of elimination is narrowing this down. I just don't want to create more problems

john

 

Maybe you should remove the pressure restrictor? I run Saginaw pumps with my Jaguar rack and pinions and have no issues. Maybe the restrictor is modulating the pressure.

 

hmmm could be... but all I read is that the ford racks run at a much lower pressure than the chevys (Saginaw) the pump puts out 1200 psi +/- and the mustang II racks only need around 800 #. the higher pressure makes the steering real sensitive and squirrely

j

 

I still think you have air in your rack..are you sure you have the lines hooked up right too , your are likely using 6-an fittings

 

Right now it seems you have just the opposite of oversensitive, you have almost no assist it seems. I would remove the restrictor and try it, I like to learn things myself rather than taking what I read on the net as gospel. Sometimes one person has an experience that was caused by some other issue and blamed on the wrong piece of hardware. You never know until you try.

 

ignore this

 

I'm having a hard time to John ...