Steering Slop

[Skrain]

After greasing every grease fitting I could find, I took the 29 for a little drive today on our local gravel road to get things settled in. There seemed to be an excessive amount of play in the steering, about a 1/4 of a turn of the wheel!
Any adjustments to tighten things up a bit?
Other then that, things seemed to be working fine, with a radiator flushed and new 50/50 Antifreeze in it for the winter, and the oil topped up.
Oh...one other thing...has anyone ever just removed that footrest next to the throttle plunger/button on the floor? Or installed the aftermarket pedal for the throttle? My feet are so wide (14EE) I keep hitting that footrest, preventing me from getting full throttle use.

 

[Mitch//pa]

your going to get all the usual responses on this type of post

ck your front end on the ground
ck your front end off the ground
ck the backing plate bolts for tightness
adj steering box

a quarter turn is quite a bit, something should be detectable if its outside the box.

i would as a first step move the free play in the wheel on the ground and look for play at all the steering arms, especially pitman arm to sector sometimes it just a matter of tightening the bolt...if nothing is detectable its probably in the box as the sector should be moving quite a bit back and forth turning the wheel a 1/4 turn....

 

[Sparky]

Unfortunately if you have a '29 you most likely have a 7-tooth box which has no real adjustments other than the lateral play of the pinion shaft. If you eliminate all other sources of play in the system (worn balls, loose king pins, etc.) and still have too much movement of the wheel you may have to resort to rebuilding the box. I put some new parts in mine a couple of years ago and have only about 1" free play at the wheel.

 

[Skrain]

There is a possibility that I'm just so used to power steering on a gravel road, there might not be quite that much play, but it might be the difference in feel between my RAV4 with wide tires on gravel, and the 29 with 4.25" tires...
Pavement will tell, I guess!

 

[Ron in Quincy]

Make sure you have a 25% load on the springs at each end of the tie rod and drag link. With the wheels down on the floor, have someone turn the wheel back and forth, just the free play, and you watch for any movement at each end of the tie rod and drag link.

Ron

 

[Skrain]

All good suggestions! I'll have someone turn the wheel while the truck is sitting on the ground, and I'll see what the heck is going on up there in front of me!