- Jul 22, 2015
- 2,724
In the middle of replacing most of my front suspension / steering components; currently in the process of removing the pitman arm. (note: if you're also replacing inner / outer tie rods, just remove the center / drag link, to give yourself more room). For the uninitated, the frame crossmember (non-removable) sits right under the gear drive shaft that the pitman mounts to, so a puller is practically useless, with the box in that position (I tried.) That leaves one with the following options:
- Disconnect the steering box (while immobilizing the steering wheel, lest you move the clockspring - for this reason, it became my least preferred option).
- Take an air hammer to the arm (I tried this, after reading about some success using it, and will NOT recommend it -- see below). Incidentally, there's a South Main Auto vid on YT showing our favorite mechanic using one on a Tahoe, which is where I got the idea.
- Use a cutoff wheel to cut away 90% of the arm from the shaft (parallel), then take a chisel & break the arm. (my next step, after making a trip to go get one. Thankfully, with the bigger compressor, I should be able to run one of these now (they use a ton of air.))
So... using the air hammer (on various spots around the circumference of the arm), I noticed that the end of the arm was starting to move / bounce when I'd pull the trigger (duty cycle for me seems to be about 5 sec 'on', then 30 sec 'off' to rebuild pressure). Great! Movement! Redouble efforts, and let's get this b!tch off!
Unfortunately, I found out that the 'movement' isn't quite up/down, it's side-to-side. So now the gear has lateral play, which I'm pretty sure it didn't have before putting the air hammer on it. What I'm worried about is that the 1/8th - 1/4 in play in the gear is now going to translate to a multiple of that at the steering wheel.
As Moose stated in a post a couple of years back, recirculating ball just isn't as 'tight' as R&P to begin with, and I can attest to that, as well. So making that even worse is unacceptable, in my book. And although the steering box has almost 250K on it, it was working fine, and had no leaks -- so I'm a bit reticent about just pulling out the parts shotgun & putting a new box on (and it would be new, not a reman, since the remans seem to be universally panned as crap.) But now I may wind up replacing the box anyway, later on, if the steering gets worse. (if any of you know for sure that I'm going to have to do it anyway, speak up). No, I'm not spending $400 (plus core) for a Redhead for this truck.
Not sure if this post was 'fyi', 'helpful hint', 'rant', 'time killer' -- make of it what you will.
- Disconnect the steering box (while immobilizing the steering wheel, lest you move the clockspring - for this reason, it became my least preferred option).
- Take an air hammer to the arm (I tried this, after reading about some success using it, and will NOT recommend it -- see below). Incidentally, there's a South Main Auto vid on YT showing our favorite mechanic using one on a Tahoe, which is where I got the idea.
- Use a cutoff wheel to cut away 90% of the arm from the shaft (parallel), then take a chisel & break the arm. (my next step, after making a trip to go get one. Thankfully, with the bigger compressor, I should be able to run one of these now (they use a ton of air.))
So... using the air hammer (on various spots around the circumference of the arm), I noticed that the end of the arm was starting to move / bounce when I'd pull the trigger (duty cycle for me seems to be about 5 sec 'on', then 30 sec 'off' to rebuild pressure). Great! Movement! Redouble efforts, and let's get this b!tch off!
Unfortunately, I found out that the 'movement' isn't quite up/down, it's side-to-side. So now the gear has lateral play, which I'm pretty sure it didn't have before putting the air hammer on it. What I'm worried about is that the 1/8th - 1/4 in play in the gear is now going to translate to a multiple of that at the steering wheel.
As Moose stated in a post a couple of years back, recirculating ball just isn't as 'tight' as R&P to begin with, and I can attest to that, as well. So making that even worse is unacceptable, in my book. And although the steering box has almost 250K on it, it was working fine, and had no leaks -- so I'm a bit reticent about just pulling out the parts shotgun & putting a new box on (and it would be new, not a reman, since the remans seem to be universally panned as crap.) But now I may wind up replacing the box anyway, later on, if the steering gets worse. (if any of you know for sure that I'm going to have to do it anyway, speak up). No, I'm not spending $400 (plus core) for a Redhead for this truck.
Not sure if this post was 'fyi', 'helpful hint', 'rant', 'time killer' -- make of it what you will.