I'm hoping someone has had this issue before and knows how to fix it. The steering on my truck seems tight, when parked and checking it out there is virtually no play in the steering wheel, everything moves smoothly, but when driving it has a mind of it's own. I hold the wheel straight, perfectly still and it pulls suddenly back and forth, as if a gust of wind has taken it. It is back and forth, almost jerking side to side, but you can't feel it at all in the steering wheel, this is downright scary! I don't have the ***** to take it above 60mph because it always seems to end up in the next lane. I just put brand new BFG's on it about 100 miles ago and had it aligned that same day, no change, still scary. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you

 

if u had an allignment done, take it back because they obvioisly didnt check everything right.

or u can check some things on ur own. ball joints - jack the truck up on the beam to unload the joint and stock a large pry bar under the tire. pull up on the bar, play? bad joint. no play, good.

wheel bearings - with the truck still jacked up, grab the wheel at 6-12 and then again a 9-3 and wiggle. play, bad. u can also double check by having someone press the brakes and repeat the same test.

steering, grab with ur hand near the end and wiggle. doesnt need to be jacked up for this.

also check the radius arm bushings and bracket then the axle pivot bushings.

also check the rag joint in the steering column near the box. have someone turn the wheel and see how much play there is.

 

Sounds like the dreaded caster shimmy. What kind of tires? Most of the time, this is due to the tire wear. A buddy of mine had the same thing one time. New tires solved it. Also, check the radius arm bushings and shocks.

 

I forgot to mention it is a 4x4, I dunno if this makes a difference on what to look for. Does the 4x4 have ball joints? The tires are BF Goodrich All Terrain T/A. It acted like this before and I thought maybe it was because of unevenly worn tires, ( the right side tires were all rounded off) but the new set made absolutely no difference unfortunately. This past weekend I replaced/packed the front wheel bearings, the right outer bearing was full of metal shavings, that got rid of the nasty grinding sound but made no difference on my annoying steering issue. I guess I should mention that I picked this truck up in December for dirt cheap with a cracked head and thought I'd rebuild the engine and be on the road, (of course it hasn't turned out that way), so I don't know any of the maintenence history, but I can tell it was never cared for, just driven into the ground. I did some of the tests you suggested Optika 1, the steering has no play in it (when not moving) and the rag joint doesn't seem to be the problem. Tomorrow I'll have to dig deeper. How do you go about swapping out the radius arm bushings? From a quick glance it looks as tho it's riveted on, but I could be wrong. Thanks for all the help.

 

If you cut the rivets, the brackets will come off. Just replace the rivets with grade 8 hardware: 1/2" bolts, and lock washers.

 

Any slop anywhere in the steering or suspension can cause this symptom, including inside the steering box. If the alignment shop misadjusted the preload, it will kill the return-to-center. Read these captions:

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If you have to change the radius arm bushings, follow the instructions in the 1st diagram; any other rivets, follow the 2nd:

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