new steering gear box installed

[Tanner]

this all has kind of happened over time so I will give as much info the best I can.

I have a 1996 chevy k1500 with the 350 vortec, it has 230,000 miles on it right now and I bought it while I was in high school. it is my first car and I love it. before I graduated I got hit by a subaru on the driver side by a 80 year old lady that was speeding lol. anyway she hit the tire more than anything and because of time and knowledge I didnt have at the time I had a shop (owned by my cousin) fix it. ever since then it has had slop in the steering and pulled to the left. so I set on a quest to fix it. I replaced all the steering components

ball joints

inner and outer tie rods

pitman and idler arm

allignments

none of these things fixed the issue. the allignment said it was all good other than the camber was just barely off on the driver side but not enough to worry about. the truck still pulled to the left so finally years later after being married and have learned alot I replaced the steering gear box and ps hoses.

and the problem is fixed!!…. sort of….. now instead of pulling to the left it pulls to the right and the power steering feels like its turbo charged. the steering wheel turns super smooth and is super sensative. I felt my dads 98 k2500 and the steering as slightly stiffer but mostly the same so im guessing thats normal.

so I guess in the end the question is do I need to go get it alligned again?? maybe because the gear box was messed up after the last allignement it is messed up now?? the truck has never wore tires out or wore them funny but I have brand new tires on it now and i dont want to start now.

to keep it from pulling to the right I just have to hold it just barely to the left and it goes straight like an arrow.

Oh and the steering does center after a turn I dont know if that makes any difference.

thanks for the help

Topic

[Andrew Phillips]

Having the alignment checked is the right place to start.

[Daniel]

Is it pulling or is the steering wheel just off center?
A toe issue does not cause a pull. A camber issue can cause a pull, but it would have to be pretty far out of spec.
I would lift the front end and shake the wheels down. You may have a bad bearing (if it is actually pulling and not just an off center steering wheel).

[Tanner]

I took it to get an allignment check and it was a little off. not terrible but off. so I went ahead and had them align it, after they got done a paid and headed out. and almost immediatly instead of going right with the steering wheel straight it went left. so less than a mile down the road I turned around and went back. they looked at it again and really took there time even though they closed. I watched both times. and after the second time it was the exact opposite it went right again with the steering wheel straight. we checked all the tie rods and pitman arm. nothing is loose we are both very confused and I have another appointment on friday.

the only thing that I can come up with is that when I put the pitman arm back on it did not fit flush on the gear box however from my understanding the gear box is tapered so with shouldnt fit all the way is that correct? I tightened the piss out of it when I put it on though.

anyone have any ideas?

I will check the bearings probably tomorrow, but they shouldnt be bad as both sides have less than 15,000 miles on them but it never hurts to check thanks

[Daniel]

A toe in/out issue will not cause a pull.
I’m assuming you are driving with it in two wheel drive not four.
Make sure the bearings are good and tight (almost no slop in the wheel).
Take a good look at the frame where the steering box mounts. The frame could be cracked there and flexing.
Keep in mind there is a huge difference between a “pull” to one side and the steering wheel just being off center. A pull will create force in the steering wheel that you have to fight against this force to keep the vehicle straight. If you let go of the wheel the vehicle will noticably steer itself to that side.
An off center steering wheel stays cocked to one side when the vehicle is going straight. When you let go of the wheel the vehicle will continue to go straight.

[Mike]

[quote=”thisisbuod” post=136104]A toe in/out issue will not cause a pull.[/quote]

A pull is precisely what a toe issue can cause. That’s like saying a spark plug issue will not cause a misfire.

[Daniel]

A toe issue causes tire scrub, scalloping, and can cause tire noise when turning, but does not cause a pull. Camber causes pull. Caster can do a bit of both. It’s one of the first things they go over for the ASE tests.
Another misconception is that alignment issues can cause vibration at speed.

[Mike]

I’ve aligned hundreds of cars, many of which had a issue where the steering wheel was off to one side and the car pulled to the other side. Most of those required toe corrections only to make the wheel straight and the car drive straight. I’m not telling you you’re wrong, I’m just saying it seems like I’ve had a different experience.

Like what about all the cars I put steering racks in and it pulls/steering wheel is crooked afterwards until it goes out for alignment (where the spec sheets come back showing toe was corrected)? I can’t imagine that every time I’m replacing a rack, I manage to get the camber so far out of whack that it pulls. I’m just going by experience here, I’m certainly not qualified to conduct a lecture on alignment theory.

[Daniel]

I’m just going by what I was taught.
Keep in mind a pull is a totally different problem than an off center steering wheel.
In my experience, a pull is usually a camber issue or tires on the front being worn different amounts.

The fact that it will jerk to one side or the other makes me wonder if the frame is cracked where the steering box bolts. This was a common issue on the older K10s. I’m not sure about this year, but I would check it considering it was in a collision. It could also be that the rear wheels aren’t tracking the front wheels. This would also cause a pull situation.

We still haven’t confirmed if it is, in fact, a pull or an off center steering wheel.

[Tanner]

for the most part it drives straight if I leave the steering wheel alone. I checked all the bearings, ball joints, tie rods and all that stuff today and everything was as it should be. I looked over the frame pretty good and i didnt see any cracks.

[Andrew Phillips]

Have you tried looking/watching under the front end while a helper turns the steering wheel from lock to lock? You might see something with excessive play that went unnoticed before. I found a crack in a Jeep frame near the steering gear that way once. No play, no movement, until watching while the wheel turned from side to side.

[Daniel]

Sorry if I’m being thick. Can you describe exactly what is going on with this thing again? Cause you started this thread complaining that your truck was pulling. Now you’re saying it’s fine most of the time.
Does it just kinda jerk to one side or the other every once in a while?

[EricTheCarGuy]

First, I agree that the toe angle doesn’t normally cause a pull. Toe angle will tear up your tires though.

That said, you may still have an issue with the alignment. To be specific, caster. Caster is the forward or rearward tilt of the steering angle. Think of a shopping cart wheel. It always ends up in the same direction. If you have enough caster difference between the 2 front wheels you can get a pull. It may show up fine on the alignment machine, but it can still cause a pull.

One thing worth mentioning is that often alignments compensate for road crown, roads normally hump in the middle to allow for better water drainage, most vehicles are set up to pull to the left slightly to correct for road crown. What you may be experiencing may be normal.

Collision damage can often bend things that can’t be seen with the naked eye. You often only see them on the alignment rack. In your case, the numbers may have been close enough, or the caster angle was not adjustable, and therefore it was never addressed.

Lastly, a bad tire can also cause a pull. You might want to swap the tires around to see if the pull changes or goes away.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[none]

I’ve been asked to chime in on this topic and I’ve found impetus to write a small book. I apologize in advance.

Passey, I agree you have left something of an ambiguous message in whether or not it’s pulling. Buod has made great points about a crooked wheel versus a pull. What I see most people doing wrong in trying to tell me that they’ve got a pull is that they try to center the steering wheel first and then they gauge how their vehicle drives down the road. If you’re going to try and gauge your vehicle’s handling on your own after an alignment, get the vehicle parallel to the road first and make sure it’s driving straight down the road. Then look at the steering wheel for straightness. I also really like what was said about a pull being a force. Even if you can’t always feel the pull, it’s still a force born out of some inequality between alignment angles from side to side or a tire problem. In short; Pull = a force.

So Passey, instead of pulling, would it be more correct to say that the truck wanders? If so, then put more stock into Eric’s post about caster angle. Caster is much less likely to cause a pull compared to camber. Where caster plays a stronger role is in road manners such as wandering. Specifically for your truck Passey, imagine an axis line drawn between the centers of your upper and lower ball joint. You should notice a slight angle in that axis, The more that axis points straight up and down, the sloppier the road manners will be. The truck just isn’t going to go in a straight line. If that axis leans too far rearward at the upper ball joint, the more likely you’ll get vibrations and chatter at higher speeds.

What I’m really dying for at the moment, is a print out of the most recent alignment. Even that may not tell the whole story, The printouts don’t usually show you the cross camber or cross caster measurements. Cross camber or caster tells you how even the measurements are from the driver’s side to the passenger side. You can still be in spec at an individual wheel but still be begging for a pull if the angle isn’t close to equal in angle to the other side. When the shop tech said the alignment was a little off, was he paying any attention to the cross measurements?

I’m leery about the fact that years have gone by since changing a lot of parts and then a lot more parts got changed and then I have to throw some question at you about how you check your parts for looseness.

Are you correctly unloading the suspension so the springs can’t put force on the ball joints while you’re checking them? Are you absolutely sure there’s no play in the idler and pitman arms? While crack checking the frame is a great idea, I’d also be looking at those arms to be loose enough to cause a drag link to be uneven. If that drag link can move too freely, it can change your toe angle as the truck flexes through the cracks & potholes going down the road and you get something called bump steer.

The parts themselves concern me mostly because I have no idea what quality of parts got thrown in. In my experience these days, the aftermarket sucks so much rancid ass that I have to be skeptical about any part that’s not OE. Then there’s the contingencies of mileage, road conditions, driving habits, etc… that might actually justify one of these parts being worn out again.

Fopeano, I’m going to agree and disagree with you at the same time about toe angles. Front toe does not cause pulls. Bad front toe can cause crooked steering wheels or scrub tires bald. Bad rear toe can sometimes cause pulls though. Consider that every time you do an alignment, the rear angles are always set first. Even if setting toe is all you get for a particular car, rear toe is the boss for setting the thrust angle. Remember that uneven toe angles will always try to equalize themselves going down the road. Since the rear tires are fixed and don’t turn like the fronts do, they try to equalize by shifting the ass end of the car to fit the thrust angle. Most times, you’ll get the car to just dog leg, but one rear tire set with a crooked rear toe can push the car around. So for all those other alignments you’re thinking of, you’ve probably overlooked all the times that you’ve also set that rear toe in the process.

Passey, I’ve got a couple other thoughts. Road surfaces aren’t the smoothest things in the world. There’s no way anybody can guarantee any vehicle will always go perfectly straight down any road. As a rule for good technicians doing an alignment, we only have to obey a five second rule. If we can take our hands off the wheel and the car can go reasonably straight down a decent road for five seconds, we’re done with that alignment. If you’re upset that you can’t drive hands free longer than that, I wouldn’t help you anymore. No matter what, you’re still supposed to have your hands on the wheel and actually drive the truck.

Somebody mentioned a tire pull. I know you said you’ve got new tires, but tires are imperfect. You might have gotten a bum tire and tires can cause a pull. Rotate the front tires side to side if you really are dealing with a pull. If the pull doesn’t change direction, you can try rotating the rear tires side to side next. If the pull changes direction, you’ve got a confirmed tire pull. If you’ve got oversized tires, they might contribute to a wander problem too.

There’s a lot of great feedback already posted, so I’m just taking a long time to beat a dead horse. But if you can get us a copy of that alignment printout, we might be able to start beating a fresh horse.

[Tanner]

ok sorry for the late post. I got off work yesterday went to the shop and went to bed when I got back home afterwards. I am also sorry about the confusion I had my deffinitions wrong. with the steering wheel straight it would drive to the right after the new gear box ( it went left before with the slop in the old gear box) after the first allignment it went left again so they did it again working untill after they closed to figure it out. It was the exact same everytime the caster and camber was in spec but the toe was always off in the opposite direction.

Anyway after about 5 or 6 times on the rack it was still doing the same thing. they double checked all the suspension parts and they were all good too. finally the tech alligned it with the wheel just slightly off center to compensate for the over shooting toe issue. and the result was with the steering wheel straight the truck drives mostly straight but follows the curve of the road. ( if Im on the right side of the road and its slanted a good amount it wanders right some. and same with the left side) this is better than the truck has ever driven since I have owned it.

I think that I will take it back in one of these days before my 30 day alignment runs out as a 30 day alignment cost me $90 is that normal? and if nothing else just double check it all. I am slightly suspicous as to why it would have to be aligned with the wheel off center?? mechanical or human? I asked for a pirintoff of the numbers but their printer just happen to be down but It is on file and I can go back and get it when their printer is working again.

I have heard that a alignment specific shop is generally better than going to a tire/ mechanic/alignment shop is there truth to this Im just curious.

I am always wiling to learn and I really appreciate the help!!

[Author]

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