Howdy all,

This last week I installed a remanufactured steering gear box from Lares to replace the one that had been in there, presumably, for the life of the truck (205,000 miles). All was hunky dory for the first dozen or so miles but today I noticed there is now play in the steering wheel /column similar to how the previous old steering gear box felt, and the alignment shop was supposedly unable to perform an alignment due to the excessive play. I thought it might be the connection to the gear box at the column as I noticed some of the teeth on the connection were worn, but the gear box even moves a bit with just my hands with the vehicle in park and the wheels on the ground. I adjusted the 3/16" Allen bolt at the top of the box as outlined in this video which did make the steering less sloppy and stiffer, but otherwise only reduced the play by about 5 degrees or so. Is there anything else I can do to improve the play or is this essentially what I get for getting a remanned unit instead of something like a Redhead?

Thanks!

 

You're experiencing what most folks get when going with a reman'd steering box. Unfortunately, those reman units are a serious crap shoot.

 

Not all remans are created equal. The gears inside the box wear as well, and very few, if any... rebuilders do anything about them. Borgeson, and Redhead supposed do..... but, I don't think borgeson makes 'em for our trucks any more.

 

This was talked about before on other threads. The main steering gear is reused, Most of the wear is in the middle(wheel straight ahead). What wasn't covered in the video is if you tighten the center up it will bind on lock to lock because there is less wear there. Redhead had pics of the old gears being cleaned up on their web site. They took them off, Guess they don't want people to see them reusing worn parts. But that's why you have slop. I would see what the return policy is, You may get another with less slop. I assume you checked all the other steering components to rule out the slop being there.

 

Thanks for the reply; yeah all of the other steering components are brand new as well, and everything checked out there, the only play was at the connection between the steering column and the gear box. Looks like I'm returning the one I bought for a warranty replacement to see if that can fix it, otherwise, Redhead it is.

 

I just checked Borgeson's website and confirmed they unfortunately no longer provide gear boxes for these trucks, only Redhead now it seems.

 

Borgeson got out of doing 2nd gen Dodge steering boxes some time ago. I've got one and it isn't perfect either. They had a lot of issues with theirs too. I believe they still make the intermediate steering shafts that are very nice, but I believe Flaming River also makes them, along with a few other suppliers.

 

There was another company that was relatively new on the scene, Blue Top? or some such??? There is a thread about them around her somewhere.

 

CanCraft outta BC

I've been meaning to ask the vehicle owner how it's holding up