Hello again DF!
Last weekend here I tackled the plenum gasket (thanks for all the help guys) and all went smoothly. After that, I decided to complete my ongoing job of freshening up the front end. Since buying the truck 6 months ago or so, it's always had bad steering. It wandered bad, had lots of slop, and was a handful on the road.
Since owning it I have replaced all 4 BJs, drivers tie rod end, draglink, center link, wheel bearings track bar, and sway bar end links. I also tightened up the steering box.

Long story short, it drives really nice now, I did a rough alignment (set about 1/8" tow in)
And drove it home on the highway for about 1 1/2 hours.
I was going about 30mph and all of a sudden the truck handled bad. It pulled hard to the right and got worse when I stepped on the brake. I honestly thought one of the steering components fell off, it was scary.
I immediately pulled over and had a look. Nothing had fallen off, nothing was loose. I check all the components from the pitman arm, to the lug nuts. Everything was tight. Only thing I could find weird was when the truck was off, the steering wheel was floppy, left to right. It took absolutely no force to turn the wheel to lock... Weird.

Being 15 minutes from home when this happened, I reluctantly drove away slowly. Everything was tight again, wiggle the steering wheel back and forth an inch, and the truck tracked left to right. About 2 minutes from home, it sorta did it again. It pulled pretty hard to the right, so I pulled the wheel left, and I could feel it wanting to go right. After a second or two, I felt it all of a sudden started going left like it should.

I'm lost. All the steering is tight, and new. When the truck isn't acting up, steering is super tight and responsive. The only thing I can think of would be the steering box. It steers good but my pitman shaft seal does slowly leak.
Does anyone have any ideas? Cause I have none. Could an over tightened steering box do something like that?
It doesn't seem predictable. The first time was on a slow downhill right turn, the second time was going fairly slow, slightly turning to the left. I need my truck for work, but I don't trust that something bad could come from ignoring this...

truck is a 2001 ram 1500 QCSB 4x4. With 5.9l gasser and 46re trans.

Thanks in advance guys.

 

I've experienced that kind of thing just once in my life, and it was a failing power steering pump that did it. We did a full-lock left turn completely across the busiest and most congested freeway in the country during the tail end of the Friday evening commute, and banged into the concrete center divider at about 50MPH. It was that or brake and get broadsided, so I stayed off of the brakes until crossing the fast lane.

That said, if you've got a severely worn steering box and try to adjust out the wear, it'll tend to hang up badly at the edges of the wear areas and when the pump gets involved things can get very interesting. So, yeah, an over tightened steering box can do something like that.

Don't drive it until it's fixed, man. If it were mine, I'd be buying the steering box, pump, and hoses rather than risking lives.

 

I hear you Unreg. It really sucks cause I don't have the money for a box and pump... I've put thousands into it in the last few months. But no excuse for safety. I was going to back off the adjustment screw on the box. The problem I have is being that it happens so infrequently I don't know how to test my repairs... And idea how to diagnose a pump and box? I've questioned the condition of my pump before. Simply because sometimes when cold my pump lags, and if I turn the wheel fast when I first start the truck, the pump won't pump enough and I have to turn the wheel slower for power steering. You follow? As for the box, I just assumed it had worn and nobody adjusted it.

 

I wouldn't drive this again until you had replaced the box and pump..... even if you have to cheap out and get a box from the parts store.

When you turned the steering at that point, did the wheels turn as well??

 

It was like I had literally about 6-8" of play at the wheel.

I'm starting to think it HAS to be the box..

 

I would tend to agree with you.

 

Dang... Is it worth while rebuilding them? Can we get rebuild kits for them?

 

I'm really glad that you said that. Lots of guys just pray to their favorite invisible being hoping that it likes them enough to help out but not so much to want to start spending more time with them.

Yep, I follow. I've never seen a pump that wasn't low on fluid do that without being done for, but if you're of a mind to do it there's a test procedure in the factory service manual which requires that you scrounge up a tool that's not in most home mechanic's garages.

The box itself doesn't really have a hard and fast go/no-go threshold for wear, as far as I know. I've never seen one with a lot of miles behind it showing six or eight inches of play at the steering wheel that could be saved. There being no hard and fast measurable threshold for wear of which I'm aware, I've always just hauled them out, adjusted them as the manual says to, and then rocked the input shaft to about 90 degrees either side of center to feel the binding where things transition from greatest wear to lesser wear -- and then, most often, just guessed if it was going to get someone killed or not. Being a cautious kind of guy, any binding with a detectable sharp break is my excuse to throw the thing away. You'll probably find that sharp break at just about the point where the play used to end.

 

Unreg, it would be bad enough to take out a pole, even worse to plow into a minivan full of kids because I didn't wanna spend the money on a steering gear..

I'm just caught up on the fact the steering so good, and then bam! Heading for the ditch, then fine again....The one thing I just forgot about is that the wheel has never returned to center very well. I believe that's a camber/castor problem. I've been meaning to check the angles. It also seems there is no straight ahead position.. It's either left or right slightly. I chocked that up to not being used to tight steering haha.. It just doesn't seem like what a typical failing steering gear problem would be. But I can't think of what else it could be..

 

Not wanting to stay on center is a sign of having been overtightened.

The works great/scary as hell thing is a sign of internal problems in the steering box. Let it go long enough, and you will become a passenger with steering wheel......

Not wanting to center is probably a combination of the over-tight steering box, and improper caster angle. I think spec is only like 3 degrees or so.... which too me, seems awfully shallow..... There are specs out there on the web somewhere from a front end man, that has done hundreds of these trucks, that are somewhat different than stock, but, I don't have a link handy, google search should turn it up though.

Replace the box, don't even bother rebuilding it. If it isn't something you have done before, or, have access to someone that has, it is way to easy to do it wrong, and cost yourself a LOT more than just money.

I would be REAL tempted to replace the pump as well. Granted, it's another 60 bucks or so, plus some fluid..... but, given all the other stuff you have done, you shouldn't have to worry about steering parts for the forseeable future.

Borrow the money if you have to, and don't have anything else to drive. We LIKE keeping our membership intact.