I have a rather strange problem. Yesterday, I took my truck to a Cummins service center for a service on the engine. They thought they'd do me a favor, and so they greased the steering joints while they had the truck. When I picked up the truck, and started to drive home, I found that the steering will now not center itself. When you turn the wheel, it stays turned. Steering real stiff too. As you can imagine the ride home was a bit white knuckle for a while. Cummins swear that all they did was put grease in, they didn't adjust anything. Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong?

John

 

Is there ps fluid in the pump? Is your truck 2wd or 4wd?
I had front axle u-joints on my 4wd cause steering problems but not stiff all the time.
Chris

 

[quote author=bigredbrick link=board=13;threadid=21449;start=0#msg201166 date=1067051857]
Is there ps fluid in the pump? Is your truck 2wd or 4wd?
I had front axle u-joints on my 4wd cause steering problems but not stiff all the time.
Chris
[/quote]
The PS fluid is fine. The truck is 2wd. I didn't mention first post, but today I took the truck to another garage, and asked them to have a look at it. Without stripping the steering down, they couldn't find anything wrong with it. They even pumped more grease through the fittings, thinking maybe there was something wrong with the grease, but no difference.

John

 

Check the sector shaft adjustment on the steering gear box. Most good shops will adjust that up from time to time to compensate for wear. It is easy to adjust, just loosen the nut and then tighten the center bolt just enough to take out any sector shaft wobble, and then back it off a fraction of a turn to avoid binding.

 

Do like RCW said--- adjust the sector. It takes a 5/8" wrench (I forgot the metric size) and I can't remember the allen wrench size. Back it off about 1/8th of a turn at a time , driving it so you can feel the right spot. It doesn't take much adjustment to make a big differance.
Tom

 

[quote author=RCW link=board=13;threadid=21449;start=0#msg201416 date=1067127182]
Check the sector shaft adjustment on the steering gear box. Most good shops will adjust that up from time to time to compensate for wear. It is easy to adjust, just loosen the nut and then tighten the center bolt just enough to take out any sector shaft wobble, and then back it off a fraction of a turn to avoid binding.
[/quote]

I'm looking at the workshop manual right now, and I can't see anything that is called a sector shaft. However, there is a Pitman shaft with a lash adjusting nut (also called a preload adjuster nut), which looks like it has a sector or quadrant of a gear on it, and sounds like what your talking about. Is that what you are referring to? I note that the manual has that adjusted to a rotational torque of the pitman shaft that is measured in values of 6-10 inch pounds. That sounds like serious adjusting.

I guess I have nothing to lose except more $$$$, so I'll give it a try tomorrow. I'll back it off 1/12 turn and see what happens. Thanks for the reply, I'll post what happens.

John

 

[quote author=MnTom link=board=13;threadid=21449;start=0#msg201821 date=1067221834]
Do like RCW said--- adjust the sector. It takes a 5/8" wrench (I forgot the metric size) and I can't remember the allen wrench size. Back it off about 1/8th of a turn at a time , driving it so you can feel the right spot. It doesn't take much adjustment to make a big differance.
Tom
[/quote]
I didn't see your reply when I answered RCW. Thanks for the wrench size. 5/8" is close to 15 or 16 mm, so it gives me a starting size.

If this fixes it, I'm going back in to. I don't mind the service outfit doing something like that to help out, but I for sure wish they'd own up to it. Then it would have been easier for me to find a fix.

John

 

Yea, that's it. You can adjust it from underneath but WATCH YOUR FINGERS ON THE FAN!!! When I did mine I adjusted a little and drove it and adjusted it and drove it................ You get the idea.
Tom

 

[quote author=MnTom link=board=13;threadid=21449;start=0#msg201848 date=1067223204]
Yea, that's it. You can adjust it from underneath but WATCH YOUR FINGERS ON THE FAN!!! When I did mine I adjusted a little and drove it and adjusted it and drove it................ You get the idea.
Tom
[/quote]
Thanks, a while ago I bought some leather gloves to try to avoid leaving skin during my mechanicking. They work well. Better than I do. Now I only have to figure out a way to get back up from the floor after I get down to work under the truck. ??? Guess that's what wives are for. ;D

John

 

Tonight I adjusted the screw in the steering box, and everything is back to normal. I had to back it out one full turn before it loosened up, then when I drove it, it seemed a little loose, so then I ran it in 1/2 turn again. Right on.

Thanks Guys, you hit the nail on the head.

John

 

Just glad you got it back to normal.
Tom

 

Kinda off topic but I have seen this happen and it was not the box adjustment.

Pressure grease gun actually over-pressurized a worn out tie-rod end and caused a mechanical lock - the rod end jammed and would not rotate inside the ball. Only thing we could figure was that the pressure jammed the ball sideways into the housing and it caught on a wear groove or something.

Have also seen adjusting sleeves oriented wrong and catch various suspension components at inopportune times, but usually only during tight turns.

I think I will play with my steering box adjuster next time I am under there. Mines getting a little sloppy on center these days.

 

I have also seen some ball joints get very stiff after greasing, but they always loosened up within a couple of hundred yards of driving. That didn't happen in this case.

I didn't consider the mechanical lock, because I thought that it would have only lasted until the first turn. Then it would have either broken the lock or the ball joint. This lasted too long to be something like that.

I had also heard of ball joints tightening up when you rotated the link out of its normal position, I guess by putting new unworn surfaces together, but nothing seemed out of position in this case.

However, once I got the feedback, and when I knew where to look, I could see evidence of the service guy having put a wrench on the steering box. The rust having been scraped off the adjusting bolt etc. That gave me the confidence to play.

It took me quite a few tries to get it just right, and I found out that I couldn't tighten the bolt until too snug, and then back off a bit, I had to back off a lot and re-approach the point I wanted from the loose side each time. Hope that makes sense.

All this was the finale to putting in a new steering coupler (which was absolutely shot), so the difference between what the steering used to be like (4" play at the wheel rim), and now is incredible.

I hope your attempts work out.

John H

 

do you have a pic of where this coupler is located? cause i've got a lot of play up @ the wheel but it's all tight down below the box.

DRecu!

 

[quote author=drecu link=board=13;threadid=21449;start=0#msg204390 date=1067719177]
do you have a pic of where this coupler is located? cause i've got a lot of play up @ the wheel but it's all tight down below the box.

DRecu!
[/quote]

Try the web site below.

http://users2.ev1.net/~glenns/Truck/...ercoupler.html

John