[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 08-Aug-01 AT 06:13 PM (EST)[/font][p]Hello all, I have a 76 Ford F-100. I was wondering why when I turn, my wheel does not return to the strait position. I doesnt return at all, not even a little. The tires are properly inflated, so I know its not that. Anyone know what the problem could be????? And also, I have yet another problem, when I hit bumps in the truck it skips real bad on the road, the faster I go, the worse it is. Its really kind of to the dangerous point. I have checked my shocks and bearings, they are good. I have checked all my joints, they seem to be fine(to me). It is really stumping me as to what the problem may be, it seems I have checked everything, I just replaced my radial arm bushings because they were trashed, but that was not the problem. I had manual steering on it, and it did the skipping thing. I just recently put power steering on it, and its 10 times worse now. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what the problem is???? the very frustrated kdogg

 

Did you get it aligned? Misalignment is usually the cause of the steering wheel not centering after a turn. You should get the alignment checked whenever you change or repair steering system parts. I didn't realize this until I wore out a couple of sets of tires due to misalignment after I fixed front end problems.

Usually tires that skip are out of balance or the shocks are bad. If that's not it, I sure don't have clue since it seems you've repaired most everything else. Maybe the alignment shop will find it.

Bob
'66 7 Litre, top loader, 3.25 Traction-lock, Sidewinder Intake, SCJ Exhaust
'88 F150 LWB 4x2, XLT Lariat, 302, 5 speed, 3.08
'99 Ranger, 4x2, 3.0, 5 speed, 3.73 posi

 

take your truck to an alinement shop and get your caster checked
if your caster is out of whack,it'll cause your steering as you
said, wonder and not to return to center after a turn is made.
good luck...

 

Yea, that was my next step, to get a allignment on it. Hopefully they can find the problem. I know this might sound dumb, but what is a "caster"? The part that the axle swivels on, towards the tire???? And thanks everyone for your advice......

 

Caster is affected when you replace your radius arm bushings. Did you replace the axle insulators, too? (Where the radius arms saddle the axle.) Or just the bushings at the end?

Caster kind of hard to picture. Look in the book and I'll fill in the blanks. If you tilt your axle forward, (like take your pinion shaft where the u-joint is and push it up), you have positive caster. You want a little positive caster, makes your truck go straight down the road at highway speeds, without having to correct all the time.

Too much positive caster: Like when they used to jack the back end of a car up with big tires and lower the front with small tires. Makes steering VERY controllable. If you're getting on it in a muscle car, nice to have control; HOWEVER, you are placing the weight of the motor on your ball joints at an angle, and tearing up your tires, tie rod ends, etc. Wasn't uncommon to have to work overtime ALL the time to pay for front end parts. Real close to too much toe-in.

Too much negitive caster: Drive down the road and you have to white knuckle it to keep it on the road. You don't want to avert you eye's because every little ripple in the road will make the truck change position. Not shake so much as wander. I see a lot of people put more stablizer shocks on their rigs rather than correct the problem. Wide tires can multiply this effect. A lot like too much toe out.

Caster is hard to "see". You can look down the side of your truck and see camber. If the front tires tilt in and it looks like the truck would corner really well,(like the oval track racers), you have too much negitive camber. Commonly caused by worn lower ball joints. Your wheels should be pretty much straight up and down when they are pointed straight ahead.

Toe-in is pretty easy to check. Point your wheels straight ahead. Sight down the inside of each front tire and you should see about 1" or 1 1/2" of the inside of the back tire.

76 F100 with 44 front axle is tough to align. Only has adjustments for toe-in. You have to replace things like axle insulators and ball joints to get it close. Takes a lot of work to do. Spendy, but the best is replace everything.(Heard that before?)

For a short term fix on you shaking problem. Replace the pitman arm. It's a common thing to go bad that causes that shake. Seems a lot of people,(me too!), replace all the tie rod ends, but forget about the pitman arm cause they cost $80.00+ and they don't look bad. It's also a big hammer, big puller, big cheater bar job.

When you put in your power steering did you make sure and align the gearbox straight before you hooked up the pitman arm and steering shaft? If it doesn't want to return at all it's very possibly the gearbox, if you got a used one you never know.

Good luck..

 

Well, I will definatly check some of those things this weekend. I just replaced the end bushings on the radius arm. On the axle end I didnt replace the insulaters. When I had the old gearbox on the truck it did the same thing, its either not that or both gear boxs are bad.........

 

It is kind of funny that both boxes did the same thing. I've seen a couple that would return one way and not the other. Probably alignment.
When you do take it in for alignment, they are going to tell you toe in is the only thing they can adjust and might not want to put it on the machine. Ask if there's any way they could put it on and give you a copy of the printout. Maybe a promise of future tire purchase or something would motivate.
Front end stuff is kind of funny, (not funny haha). Seems like you replace one thing, something else goes. Always looking for the weakest link, until you've replace everything- to find it was bad shocks all along......

 

Could be caster. Think of caster this way: imagine a straight line drawn through the center of your king pin. Now imagine that you extend that line until it intersects with the pavement. Now imagine where the center is of the tire contact patch (where it contacts the pavement). The difference in location of the two points illustrates castor. If you tilt the front axle back the line you imagined going through the king pin will be projected further in front of the vehicle and you get more caster. Caster is good for stability but too much will destoy responsiveness. Too little will cause darting as you described. Note also that lack of toe-in will cause the wheels to seek their own direction within the slack allowed by the steering components. A little toe-in will direct the wheels inward and keep the steering components loaded in one direction so that the slack does not produce wandering. Toe-out is generally considered bad as it can produce unexpected turn-in during cornering or when only one wheel hits a bump.

Randy Howard

 

Just to toss a tid-bit this way, Dana does make caster adjustment "rings" avaliable thru Dyna-trac, these are basically tapered plates that fit behind the spindle (about 2 1/2 to 3 degrees positive or negative depending on which side you place "up", they only go on two ways)-pain to put in, but they do hold adjustment! I use these in conjunction with degreed bushings to obtain the correct caster, which for me is just slightly on the positive side with a very minimal amount of toe-in, this on a '79, 35" tires and only one stabilizer in the non-stock position, drives as nice as it ever did with 30" tires on it with dual stabilizers, stock alignment setting and stock bushings.