Steering Box Adjustment ( slack )
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Junior User
Joined: Jan 2009
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From: Ponchatoula, La.
Steering Box Adjustment ( slack )
Looking to see if any of you fellas have had the issue w/ excessive slack in your steering wheel ?? Front end is all new - all I can figure is there may be an adjustment on the steering box to re-set backlash or sum'n ?? Anyone ran into this problem ??
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From: knox Tn
hey got 03 6.0 with same problem. on 3rd steering box tried adjusting 2nd one tighten it but still had slack. there is a shaft with a lock nut on top of the box, luosen nut turn shaft clock wise. try quarter turns at a time this might help also read red head steering thread
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Joined: Jun 2007
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From: Corvallis, OR
There are a couple threads about how to do it. Basically you loosed the jam nut on the adjustment screw on the top of the steering gear, tighten the adjustment screw, and retighten the jam nut.
What I did was first check how much slack there was by tightening the adjustment until it started to get hard to tighten and count the revolutions. If it is more than one full turn, you could have excessive wear and don't want to set the gearbox up too tight in the middle or it could jam at full lock. Mine was 11/6 turns (turning 1 edge of the hex head at a time). I took one full turn out, so 5/6 turns slack and it was MUCH better, but still a little slack, so later I tightened it so there was only 1/2 turn of slack and it is very good now.
Some people say 1/6 slack or less is best, but that is for a new steering gear and if you set up an old one that tight it could bind at full lock.
What I did was first check how much slack there was by tightening the adjustment until it started to get hard to tighten and count the revolutions. If it is more than one full turn, you could have excessive wear and don't want to set the gearbox up too tight in the middle or it could jam at full lock. Mine was 11/6 turns (turning 1 edge of the hex head at a time). I took one full turn out, so 5/6 turns slack and it was MUCH better, but still a little slack, so later I tightened it so there was only 1/2 turn of slack and it is very good now.
Some people say 1/6 slack or less is best, but that is for a new steering gear and if you set up an old one that tight it could bind at full lock.
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