Stiff steering

[staggerwing]

Aside from the problem I'm having with a stiff front suspension, hopefully to be remedied after the Brenham gathering, something else has surfaced regarding the stiffness of the steering.

Pulled the front wheels to have them balanced and when I went to put them back on, I noticed the steering was really stiff while the front wheels were off the ground. I did some checking around under there and It may be just tie rod ends that are causing the problem. Boots are bad on both and they seem a bit tight. I don't know if that's normal or not but I'll replace them tomorrow and see if that's the problem. Ball joints are firm. With T-rods disconnected, I can grab a wheel, apply push/pull pressure by hand to turn it, and both wheels seem a little sticky at first then they move. Once each wheel starts moving, rotation back and forth seems normal, without too much effort. Steering box moves freely.

At first I was thinking ball joints. I've read that some people are having trouble after new ball joints cause they don't fit right and are too tight. I sure don't want to make things worse than they are by putting in ball joints that are too tight.

Will post update after new tie rod ends are installed and road tested.

[johber41]

Hey Richard...I had a similar problem a couple of years back and I thought something was binding. I found that the adjustment on the steering box was too tight and that the box had leaked its original 90 weight hypoid oil to a point where it was low. I removed the steering box and filled it with grease, then after moving it a bit, re-adjusted the screw-down adjustment. It helped a lot and gave me a better steering radius. A year or two later I also developed a shimmy when braking and found that I need new link pins and King pins (61....no ball joints). That really made it feel like new.

Hope that helps sir.

[staggerwing]

Thanks John. Good information! My steering box seems okay, that was the first thing I checked. I did not, however, check the oil level but will. Pulled outer tie rod ends and it seems like passenger side was a bit tighter to rotate than drivers side. Put new ones on but haven't had a decent opportunity for a test drive due to wet weather. Ball joints are a bit snug and I'm hoping that maybe they just need to wear-in. After Brenham, my plan is to replace the existing beam with another that doesn't have adjusters as these have been a problem since day-one, I think, giving us a ride that basically has very little up and down suspension, if any. I'll go through the whole thing then and hopefully run across something that solves the problems I'm having. Test drive tomorrow!

[staggerwing]

Test drive says the tie rod ends needed replacing. I’ll blame most of it on the passenger side tie rod as it was a bit tighter than the drivers side when I did the twist test. I’m a happy camper now and ready for Brenham!