On Thu, 19 Jan 2006, Don Rey wrote:
>
> While under my truck for an oil change last night, I noticed damage to
> my steering gear housing: where the pitman arm bolts to the gear, the
> gear housing is cracked and spread out.
wow. and you're still IFS? I haven't managed to do that yet even
steering 40s for the last 7000 or so miles, and 35s for the 13000 before
that. I had major (1/8" +/-) sector shaft play in my first steering box,
and I've got some major backlash in the box I'm running now, but no
housing damage.
Which reminds me, I *really* need to get that old box rebuild and fab up a
sector shaft carrier bearing....
> This allows the top of the
> pitman arm to move side to side a few millimeters when it should only
> rotate. Has anyone ever heard of this before!?
never via a crack in the box! Are you sure you're not just seeing some
"normal" sector shaft play and just some flashing from the box casting
looking like a crack? If you can keep any power steering fluid at all,
the box can't really be broken. sector shaft play is pretty comon though,
because these boxes don't have a bearing at the bottom where the stress is
and it really matters - only one at the top, with a bushing at the bottom.
The more stress you put on your steering (big tires, offroading, just lots
of miles of rough roads) the more this bushing will wear. First sign is
generally that the seal starts to leak 'cause the shaft moves too much for
the seal to stay sealed.
> Its a helluva beefy
> cast housing, I can't imagine when or how this damage happened (maybe
> from wheeling too hard, but I havn't been off road in 10,000+ miles).
> The truck is approaching 250,000.
>
> Lately (the past several thousand miles), I've been thinking I need a
> front end alignment... once in a while at high speed, the truck will
> turn slightly in a direction I didn't intend. It's mostly predictable
> - only happens when shifting lanes aggressively or taking a turn on
> the highway, and only at 70+mph. Now I know why.
My steering wheel has about 3/32 - 1/8 of a turn of rotational play before
it moves my steering. That's backlash slop though, so it's a 100% dead
spot. I'm thinking of swapping back to my sector shaft play box since
that didn't have the backlash problem. I didn't have nearly the issue
going straight down the road with that one as I do with this one. It
leaked worse though.... When I really feel it is during lane changes, or
driving where there are "dents" in the road from thin pavement+heavy truck
traffic+hot summer sun. The pavement will grab the tires and steer them,
and it takes a larger motion of the wheel to "catch" the truck than it
should. I was getting very, very good at it, but I'm sure next time I
drive it I'm going to be all over the road again since it's been pretty
much permanantly retired to playtime duty as of last Friday.
>
> Anyone have a spare Gen 1 steering gear they want to sell?
>
Sorry, just a Gen III that needs rebuilding and tapping for hydro
assist...
-- +-- Mike Maskalans ---------------- Rochester, NY ----------+ | '98 Dakota CC, SAS on 40s '84 RamCharger 4x4, plow truck | | '02 Jetta TDI 5sp, daily '97 Intrepid, not on the road | +-------------------- <http://mike.tepidcola.com/trucks/> --+
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