Help Needed Steering wander

[atomicglock]

Called the dealership. Since this problem seems to occur most often in the morning after the truck has sat all night and it's cold, I'm going to leave her in their parking lot Sunday night and then meet up with one of the mechanics Monday morning at 0700 to see if we can't duplicate the problem. I'll let you guys and gals know.

Howard

 

[Scot]

I had some dangerous wander for a while. The kind that made you wonder if you were going to make it to your destination. I replaced everything, ball joints, shocks, SA bushings... etc... Nothing helped until I replaced to steering gear box. This was on a 06 w/ 90K at the time. If your 00 still has the original box? it could easily be the culprit.adjusting a bad gear box will only make things worse. (yes speaking from experience)

I ordered one of these and had a local guy install for about 80 bucks.

Red-Head Steering Gears, Seattle WA - Red-Head Steering Gears Home

 

[atomicglock]

I had some dangerous wander for a while. The kind that made you wonder if you were going to make it to your destination. I replaced everything, ball joints, shocks, SA bushings... etc... Nothing helped until I replaced to steering gear box. This was on a 06 w/ 90K at the time. If your 00 still has the original box? it could easily be the culprit.adjusting a bad gear box will only make things worse. (yes speaking from experience)

I ordered one of these and had a local guy install for about 80 bucks.

Red-Head Steering Gears, Seattle WA - Red-Head Steering Gears Home

Did this only happen on cold mornings after you truck sat idle over night but did not occur later in the day? That's what mine is doing. It would seem to me that a worn gear box would'nt care what the temperature was.

Howard

 

[Scot]

Did this only happen on cold mornings after you truck sat idle over night but did not occur later in the day? That's what mine is doing. It would seem to me that a worn gear box would'nt care what the temperature was.

Howard

Yep, but it would also seem that all other steering components wouldn't care about temp either. If anything could possibly be affected by temp I would say fluid or gearbox related. The rest of the system stays within a narrow temp range the whole day.

 

[Tail_Gunner]

I had a thought, how about something like worn bushings with the track bar and/or bushings?

 

[JLDickmon]

Well, I got my truck back last night. They claimed they took the front end apart and couldn't find anything wrong and that all it was was an alignment problem. Paid for it and went for a test drive. Something still didn't seem right but the wandering problem was gone... or so I thought.

Drove her to work this morning. Still seemed as though something wasn't quite right with the steering but again, no wander, until I got about 10 miles from home. I made a hard left hand turn and I instantly knew there was going to be problems. Sure enough she was wandering all over the road and I could just barely control her. After a couple of miles I made a hard right turn and heard a clunk. After that she tracked fine. The dealership will be getting another call this morning.

Howard

five bucks says it's a frozen axle joint

 

[Scot]

five bucks says it's a frozen axle joint

that sounds like good culprit.

Atomicglock, do you have geaseable u joints on that truck? Some do some dont.

 

[atomicglock]

five bucks says it's a frozen axle joint

Sorry, you loose. Pay me the five bucks. Dealership already checked for that problem and said they u joints are tight.

Scot: non-greaseable.

Howard

 

[atomicglock]

I had a thought, how about something like worn bushings with the track bar and/or bushings?

Somebody else told me about this. I'll check with the dealership on Monday.

Howard

 

[JLDickmon]

Sorry, you loose. Pay me the five bucks. Dealership already checked for that problem and said they u joints are tight.

Scot: non-greaseable.

Howard

someone at your dealership is a spank.
I'm not talking loose, I'm talking frozen up.
Have them check again.
Ask them if they popped the tie rods off both steering arms to isolate it to the knuckle or the linkage.