Odd steering ratio

[treegump]

Just got a new-to-me truck and it appears I can only turn to the right about 1/4 of what I'm supposed to turn.

But to the left is fine.

Steering has slop in it anyhow, so I'll be digging in regardless...but is there an adjustment in the steering box itself to correct this?

Thanks!

 

[ak diesel driver]

Should be limited by the stop on the knuckle

 

[WarWagon]

Maybe the steering bar with everything on it that goes all the way across is bent. I do not know how the PO managed to do this, but, I had to replace it...

 

[treegump]

Read somewhere that it could be a mixture of track bar and pitman arm adjustment.

But, yea, I'm not sure how he pulled it off either...

 

[3500GMC]

Sometimes a suspension lift without all the right parts will do that

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

Bent sector shaft in the steering box can do it too.

 

[treegump]

Sometimes a suspension lift without all the right parts will do that

I had read that also, but there is no suspension lift on this truck.

 

[treegump]

Bent sector shaft in the steering box can do it too.

Interesting. Probably means I need a new steering box then, huh?

Also interesting how I didn't notice it when I took it for a test drive, ha.

 

[treegump]

I'm an idiot...

Pitman arm.

Remove from the steering box, center the steering shaft, reinstall the pitman arm.

Should fix the problem.

 

[ak diesel driver]

IIRC the pitman arm is keyed so it will only go on one way

 

[1994ch]

We had a shop adjust the alignment on one of our trucks one time...........they did not center the steering wheel before adjusting the tie rods. We had the same problem, truck would turn really sharp one way, and take a hundred acres to turn around the other way. We adjusted the alignment ourselves with a string and a tape measure after that.

 

[treegump]

IIRC the pitman arm is keyed so it will only go on one way

Dang it! But good to know. Thank you.

 

[treegump]

We had a shop adjust the alignment on one of our trucks one time...........they did not center the steering wheel before adjusting the tie rods. We had the same problem, truck would turn really sharp one way, and take a hundred acres to turn around the other way. We adjusted the alignment ourselves with a string and a tape measure after that.

That sucks! I'll see what I can figure out then, I suppose.

 

[1994ch]

I have no idea what they were thinking. It was an easy fix and we got a good laugh out of it..... (being an off road truck we did not need to get it set perfectly with a high dollar machine)

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

They are keyed so they can only go on one way, but one could screw up bad enough to get it hooked up a tooth off, and get it aligned. It would be easy to tell, with the wheels straight, crawl under and look at the pitman arm. If it goes straight back, it's on correctly, if it's way to one side or the other, it's off. The sector shaft has 4 slots that center the pitman to it. Theres about 50-60 degrees of turning movement from lock to lock in the box, so if they got it a tooth off it could still drive, just be stuck almost completely to one side all the time.

 

[treegump]

If it's not too expensive I'm going to let my neighbors figure it out. They are both temporarily working for an on again/off again job, looking for something more secure.

They work on their own vehicles and actually the son just moved his dad's (dad's) sentimental 96(?) C2500 6.5 ext cab long bed truck to another frame since it had been in a wreck. Did quite the nice job, from outside appearances anyhow.