I have a 91 F350 2wd tilt steering that has some left right play. About 3 inches from left to right, no movement from gearbox to tie rod ends.....all in steering wheel. I can also wiggle the steering wheel from 8oclock to 2oclock on the wheel and have some sloppy movement.


I was told I can get a rebuild kit for the inside of the column.....but I was also told that I can tighten some screws on the tilt mechanism.......


Please help....

Thanks

 

Thread moved to the '87-1996 forum. The F350 should be the same column as the rest of the trucks of that year.

With the engine running, grab the steering shaft as it goes into the steering box and check how much you can rotate the shaft itself before the pitman arm moves.

You might get some joy from adjusting the steering box

 

well after further investigating it seems that the most play is where the shaft from the steering column slides into the shaft just above the gearboin engine compartment) It is a flat sided round shaft that slips into the gearbox shaft with no bolt or clamp.........Dealer said it would be around $250 for a new one..........and still thinks I should put a $50 kit and bearings in my upper column......but I can deal with the tilt play its just the left and right play I dont really like.....

 

Ok took the steering shaft apart and there seems to be some kind of shims that were in the shaft that are warn....actually gone.....and thats the problem....but at $300+ for a new one I am going to have a friend maybe tack weld it in place or if the shaft comes out from the gear box I may drill a hole and moubt a bolt.

 

That collapsible shaft is there for a reason - to collapse in case of an accident so you don't have the steering wheel shoved into your chest. That came into being somewhere in the '70's, I know my '74 highboy didn't have one, but I think a '78 or '79 did, that I grabbed a shaft out of for a steering box conversion.

If it were me, I'd try a junkyard. You might get lucky.

Those "shims" that are missing, maybe someone else tried to shim it, because that doesn't sound right.

 

There should be a square shaped black colored plastic shim that goes between the slip joint to remove the slack. On my 88 there was a rubber grommet at the bottom of the shaft to keep the spline from falling out.

When I pulled my gear box to work on the sector shaft seal I removed the 3 bolts that held the gear box to the frame rail. I then removed the gear box with the bottom half of the intermediate shaft still attached to the gear box.

When I reinstalled the gear box I lined up the lower part of the intermediate shaft so it slipped back into the top part of the slip joint. What I didn't realize was I had pushed the plastic shim back up into the top half of the intermediate shaft. When I put everything back together there was a lot of back and forth play in the steering wheel. I used a piece of wire and bent a hook on one end and fished the plastic shim back down. There is still some play between the shafts but it's very drive able.

Two companies make replacement intermediate shafts in the $250-$275 range which appears to be priced higher than a stock replacement. Both aftermarket units get rid of the rag joint.

Flaming River Steering Components
Borgeson Universal

 

Isn't the rag-joint itself worn out with L to R play?

 

No it is the shims like they said. I fixed the play in that shim area. I still have some issues with my tilt play. Like said above.....its driveable and not that bad to worry about. I just would like to fix the wiggle in the wheel, heck I dont even care if it is with a non-tilt mechanism.