Greetings! I have a Toyota steering unit in my '59 F-100 Styleside with a '78 GM tilt steering column. How can I reduce the amount of "play" in the steering? Thanks!
DS

 

Using a modern steering box and column, you shouldn't have excessive play in the steering. If you do, then something is possibly wrong. Check out the suspension and steering for worn components and be sure nothing is worn out under there. If everything is tight, a last resort might be a smaller diameter steering wheel...

 

And-if-you-are-using-a-rag-joint-then-change-it-to-a-steering-joint.

 

i also have the toyota steering box on my 56 and noticed that there is about a 1/4 inch or more of play that you can turn the input shaft side to side and the pitman arm will not turn. i haven't driven the truck yet so i don't know if this is ok or not. would it be possible to tighten this slack using the slotted bolt and nut on the side? thanks
Josh

 

You need to make sure the toyota box is in the center of it's travel before you adjust it. It is designed to have a tighter road feel in the center than anywhere else. In fact, if your wheels are straight ahead, but the box is not centered, this may be where the play is coming from.

 

Franklin's right on the money. I'm not familiar with the Toyota box but I can comment on the original steering box.

When you are turning in either direction, the caster on the front wheels combined with the weight of the truck try to turn the wheels back to the straight-ahead position. The spindles press on the tie rods, the tie rods on the sector arm, the sector arm on the sector gear, and the sector gear on the worm gear which is attached to the steering shaft along with the steering wheel. You're holding the wheels in place with the steering wheel and, if you let go, the steering wheel tends to rotate back to the straight-ahead position.

What does this have to do with adjusting the steering gearbox play? Well, the worm and sector shaft gears are designed so that they mesh together most closely when the wheels are in the straight-ahead position. The reason is that when you are turning, any play in the gears is not as important since all the steering parts have pressure on them trying to return to the straight-ahead position. The gears won't slap back and forth in a turn - they just ride on one side to resist the pressure to return to straight-ahead. When you're going straight-ahead though, there is no significant pressure one way or the other and the gears bang back and forth against each other if there is any play. That's why a loose steering gearbox (or other worn suspension component) isn't as noticable when turning but is a real pain when you are trying to go straight down the road.

There is a detailed procedure for adjusting the steering gearbox in the shop manual. If you don't have one, I'd highly recommend getting one from the online store. Here's a quick and dirty way to adjust the gearbox in the mean time.

1. Jack up the front end of the truck so both front wheels are off the ground.
2. Find the slotted adjustment screw and lock nut on the steering gearbox.
3. Loosen the locknut and make sure you can turn the slotted screw with a screwdriver.
4. Get a friend to sit in the cab and slowly turn the steering wheel back and forth about 1/4 to 1/2 turn either side of straight-ahead.
5. Slowly tighten the adjusting screw until your friend notices that the steering resistance increases as the steering wheel passed the straight-ahead position.
6. Back off the adjusting screw about 1/8 turn and tighten the locknut.

Sorry for the long post - hope it's useful to you or someone else.

George

 

i checked and the pitman arm was in the center of the box's range of motion. so i used what george said for the original box and it tightened everything up nice and snug. thanks for the help
Josh