Hey All,

I've been down a bit of a rabbit hole recently trying to get the steering tightened up on my '76 F250 with manual steering. Tl:dr I've replaced the steering box, drag link, and both tie rods, and I'm still getting motion in the input shaft.

I noticed when I was down working on brakes that I can see the steering arm coming up from the knuckle flexing when I turn the steering shaft on the box. It's not a lot of motion, but it might be enough that once it's back through the ratio in the box to cause the slop that I'm seeing. Is it possible to get a completely tight steering system out of these trucks, particularly with highboy steering? The only things left to replace at this point are the pitman arm and the steering arm on the knuckle, but I doubt anyone makes a replacement steering arm.

 

It's possible to get it better than it was when it was new, but probably not as good as modern trucks.

Mine's a F150 4x4. I've replaced every steering component, and the truck handles really well. The component that did the most to tighten up the steering, is my Redhead steering gearbox. They're wonderful.

 

My RH box took about half the motion out, so that's at least an improvement.

 

The best thing you can do to these trucks is get a Borgeson steering shaft and a Blue Top steering box. That alone in itself will bring the steering feel very close to a brand new Super Duty, especially since the Highboy should have crossover steering and not the low steering.

 

The borgeson shaft was on my list, but it was kinda low down since my steering shaft is tight. AFAIK Blue Top doesn't do the highboy manual steering boxes, which is why I went with Redhead. But I could be wrong

Also when you say crossover steering, I'm thinking like what you see on modern solid axle vehicles where you have a link that goes from the box to the passenger side knuckle, then a link going from pass to drivers side. Highboy steering has a short link from the box to the drivers side knuckle, and then the cross bar,

 

Are your upper and lower knuckle bearings loose? The bottom one may be bad letting the knuckle pivot when steering.
76 could have ball joints, are they loose.

 

It was well worth the upgrade in my friends 79 F250. I would move it up the list personally. It eliminates the rag joint which is a big improvement in itself. Also BlueTop/Redhead....same thing. There's a funny story there.



That sounds like the low steer set up you see in the later light duty Lowboy trucks. You'll have to bear with me, I don't know these trucks as well as I do 80-96.

 

So you still have the factory power assist arrangement right? If you are driving down the road, how much free play is there in the wheel turning back and forth without it making the truck move left or right?
These systems had a slight amount of free play in steering wheel even when new. Its the nature of the design and largely happens due to the amount the wheel has to be turned before the steering box output shaft and Pittman arm linkage activates the spool in the control valve so it can shift oil flow to the cylinder to start moving the wheels. When I rebuilt my control valve (Basic kit from Blue Top),https://bluetopsteeringgears-com.3dc...-Kit_p_52.html it really helped lessen the free play to what I consider normal. I had checked all the joints in the linkage system and they looked fine so while I was rebuilding the control valve to stop leaks, I was hoping it would also tighten the steering a bit and it did make a nice difference.
With this design you could imagine just a small amount of wear in each component as the vehicle ages all combine together to exacerbate the design weakness.
I bought my first highboy (77) in 1979 with 5000 miles on it. I took it back to the selling dealer a week later to complain about the steering that didn't seem responsive enough. They checked it and said it was perfectly normal. That was my first education on the power assist system.

 

I believe all highboys are this way, but the midshaft I have already doesn't have a rag joint. Suppose the upgrade couldn't hurt regardless. Didn't feel any slop but it is old

I just have manual steering, no power assist. I have some driving videos of right after doing all the joints, I'll see if I can post it later.