hey guys, it's been a while since my last post and i know this has been covered in here before. it seems i have the infamous steering wander (98 f150, 4x4, 4.6L, 93,000 miles), but can't pinpoint the cause. on the highway i need to make constant adjustments to track straight (hanging on tight in high winds and passing semis). i noticed in low speed turns, it wants to track towards the to outside of the turn (kind of like sliding on ice when turning but you still have traction). i had the lower ball joints replaced approx 5k-10k miles ago and also new tires since that was done. other than that, everything is original with original (high) miles. jacked the front end up last nite and here's what i checked. before i pulled the tires and rims, i pushed and pulled from top and bottom of the tire(s) with no movement and also did the same by pushing and pulling on left and right side of tire(s). there was minimal movement L-R (1/2 in or so) and it seemed to move/turn everything, including the steering wheel. pulled tires and checked the tie rods and center link, neither moved (no free play) at all. i have no grinding/cracking/etc. noise coming from the front end. one thing though, when i had the tires put on at NTB i had them do the alignment. what i didn't realize until after the fact was i had a broken swaybar end link and no one mentioned that. i replaced it myself, but am wondering if i should have the alignment checked again (it took the guy more than an hour to finish the alignment).
i'm planning on replacing the inside and outside tie rod ends on both side because of the mileage, but is there any thing else to consider before i get into this too much? i hate to think about upper ball joints since that's a job for the shop, not me. idler arm, pitman arm? i'm at a loss and don't want to do all this work and spend the $$$ for nothing (at least not spend the $$$ for unneeded repair/parts). thank in advance for the help. everyone's past posts about this has helped me get this far.

 

With your mileage I would go ahead and check the idler arm, upper ball joints ect. Another possible cause could be slop in your lower steering shaft. I had a similar problem. After replacing practically my whole suspension, including urethane bushings everwhere,shocks, tires ect. I found that the slip joint in the middle of the lower steering shaft had so much slop that it would literally flop around when I turned the wheel under load. After replacing it my problems were solved. I think there are a few posts that mention it. Try a search on " lower steering shaft".