Tight Steering

T

Tom Grz

Member
I just finished disassembling, cleaning, greasing and reassembling my entire front end from spindles to steering box, including new rubber seals on the tie rods and adjusting the steering box on the bench. When I was done, I was just surprised at how tight the steering was with the front wheels off the ground. It turns stop to stop without binding, but is there any way to judge how much effort it should take to turn the steering wheel with the wheels off the ground?
 
With wheels off the ground, it should be easy to turn the steering wheel with 1 finger. It sounds like you have adjusted something a bit too tight by accident.

Do you have a 2-tooth steering box? Does it seem to get easier when the wheels are turned away from center, left or right?

Did you use shims under the thrust bearings on the top of each kingpins? You may have used too many and jammed things up.
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The spindles turned freely when I worked on them, with and without weight on them. The tie rod ends were probably the tightest individual components because of the new rubber seals. Plus I'm not sure if the end caps are too tight since the instructions in the red book (25% compression) are tough to gauge, so I followed a different approach that I found in the forum - compress all the way and back off 1/4-1/2 turn. I'll try turning the wheel with one finger tonight and maybe pop the pitman arm off to try isolating where it's tight. Thanks!
 
Did you replace the balls on the spindle arms? They have to be perfectly round,not egg shaped at all.Did you center the worm gear to the right position before you adjusted? The spoke position of the steering has nothing to do with the centering of the worm gear.
 
Tom Grz said:
The spindles turned freely when I worked on them, with and without weight on them. The tie rod ends were probably the tightest individual components because of the new rubber seals. Plus I'm not sure if the end caps are too tight since the instructions in the red book (25% compression) are tough to gauge, so I followed a different approach that I found in the forum - compress all the way and back off 1/4-1/2 turn. I'll try turning the wheel with one finger tonight and maybe pop the pitman arm off to try isolating where it's tight. Thanks!
Click to expand...

OK, I think the tie rod ends are too tight.

I spoke to Les Andrews about his instructions of 25% compression, because that is hard to apply in practice. Here's what we finally agreed on:

"After the screw-in plug just makes contact with the spring or the ball, turn the screw-in plug an additional 4 to 5 turns." That would be for a spring that is close to the original (correct) length of 1 inch. It is good to measure the spring length before installing them.

As it turns out, 4 turns compresses a 1 inch spring 20% and 5 turns compresses it 25%. Get close to 5 turns and stop when the cotter pin slot lines up with the 2 holes.

Same with the drag link ends.

Hope that helps.

Oh, and as mentioned above, the balls do need to be round.
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An old-time Ford dealership mechanic from the late 1930's-1960's taught me to tighten both ends on the drag link and tie rod to the point that with a vise grip you can slightly rotate the rods with some resistance. If you can't rotate the rods, the end plugs are too tight. If the rods rotate easily over the steering arm balls, the end plugs are too loose. I doubt that these guys adhering to the Ford repair time schedule would have bothered figuring out what was a 25% compression. In no time they would have developed a "feel" for the right amount of tension required without being too tight or too loose.
The point made about steering arm balls being flat on the sides is a valid one. Flat steering arm balls will definitely affect how tight the end plugs are, and hence, determine the difficulty when turning the steering wheel.
Marshall
 
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Adjust them when turned all the way in whatever direction makes it easiest to acess to compensate for worn balls.
 
I made a couple of minor adjustments to the steering box and two of the links and it’s better now. Thanks for all the suggestions!
 
Actually one can measure the springs, usually 1", and when they are installed and resistance is felt with slotted end plug, screw in the plug visually about 1/4" or so as stated above. The slot usually lines up with the cotter holes or close to them.
 
When the steering box is bolted in the frame there are three adjustments you can make. With the front wheels off the ground none of them should be turned so tight that you can feel even the smallest increase in effort needed to turn the steering wheel. If you do, back it off the smallest amount that gets the job done. You don't want to force the case to act as a spring keeping the parts tightly jammed together. If the box is properly lubed and the pitman arm or drag link are disconnected you should be able to turn the wheel with a gentle push with your little finger.
 
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