Sloppy Steering

[deminimis]

Originally Posted by Bronco_hauler

Les Schwab: "It wasn't us, it came in that way, and we assumed you knew about it".

You just know that's what they'd say if you confront them about it.


Herb

Funny thing that, I have a picture showing the bushing was intact prior to their messing around (a shock mount pic I saved on flickr). They'll get a letter with a bill. My guess is they'll ignore it.

[deminimis]

Here's the update and its good news finally. Nelson Tire Factory in The Dalles, OR treated me great. The guy that runs the alignment shop worked on the van from 11AM until 5:30 PM yesterday and this morning early until after 9AM. He set it up beautifully and un-did the damaged caused by Les Schwab. Total bill was only $205 (included complete align, new bushing ($45) and machine work to remove a broken off bolt ($25)). I was expecting $350 or more because of the problem caused by Les Schwab. So, that's only about $50 more than I was going to pay at Les Schwab. With that, I'm not going to waste my time even messing with them (contacting them for $ for the damage they caused is not worth my time). Figure I got off cheap...real cheap.

So, the good alignment guy got me freaked out regarding the steering box. See, I tightened it up a fair amount (did not do the torque wrench method I'm going to list below). If you over tighten it, apparently you can trash your steering box within very few miles (I knew if you over did it , you'd wear the box out prematurely, but the way he was talking, it happens fast, real fast, on these). So, decided to put on the Carhartts, brave the snow and cold, and do it right. It was easy and I was just right at or ever so slightly out of spec with my old-school method. Moved the process to a different thread as its buried here.

[Skywagon]

Today I fixed the wandering on my new (2008, 4,000 miles) van. I have an RB50 with 315/17 BFG's, and while it steered OK, it tended to need constant attention to keep it centered between the lines.
I got sick of fighting it and went to work. First we checked the alignment which was perfect. ( 1/16 inch toe-in). Next we checked the caster which was 4 deg. +/_. The specs call for 4-8 deg.+/_ so we shimmed the axle to produce 6 deg. +/_. That helped considerably, but did not completely cure the wandering.
So, next we fabbed a new track bar out of 1 1/2 seamless tubing and put high quality rod ends on each end.
This COMPLETELY cured the wander, and now the truck tracks like an arrow. Unfortunately, I can now feel some vibration in the steering wheel; (Not too bad), but worse i can hear a fair amount of rumble being transmitted into the chassis.
My van is completely Dyna-matted so was very quiet before.
(At 55MPH you can't hear the engine).
Needless to say, I'm disappointed by this last outcome.
We're going to the desert for a week and this will entail about 20 hours of highway driving. We'll see if the rumble is worth putting up with in order to have perfect steering, and will report when I return.

Happy New Year all
Cheers ,Bill

[deminimis]

Please post up a pic of your track bar. What size DOM did you use? How's it working these days?

[Skywagon]

Sorry for not following up on this sooner! Been busy going places and doing things.
I haven't posted a picture because I haven't taken one. However, the track bar looks just about like the stock one except that it has rod ends instead of rubber bushings. We used 1 1/2 inch D.O.M. and weldable tube ends. The rod ends, jam nuts, and misalignment bushings; all came from the local bearing house. Parts were about $275.00 not including the pinion shims and camber caster bushings which were $15.00 and $35.00 each respectively.
The growling that I alluded to in my last post is mostly gone once I remembered to disengage the front hubs
The whole deal, including labor and parts and alignment was about $550.00. Not cheap, but MUCH nicer to drive.
I have an aluminum Featherlite flatbed which I hauled to Ventura yesterday to pick up a 40's Delahaye which weighs at least 4000 # and it tracked and towed like a dream. Well worth the price of admission!
I have part #'s for the above parts, but not manufacturers, but can probably track down that information if someone is serious about replicating the process.
Bill