04 Tahoe unstable when accelerating.

[Sausey]

I have an 04, AWD, with Rough Country leveling keys,Z71 rear springs and Bilstein 5100 shocks, running 285 70 R17 tires.

When I'm accelerating, the steering becomes very unstable. The truck will jump back and forth across the road and the steering wheel will sway side to side. This only seems to happen when in accelerating. If I'm off the gas and coasting everything drives just fine.

This is especially bad when I'm accelerating from a stop, and when the roads are wet.

I just had an alignment and a tire rotation, any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[OR VietVet]

Is this something that started happening out of the blue? Any work done to it before it started happening? Happens with any type of acceleration or just heavy accel? Did you have the tire rotation and alignment in an attempt to fix the problem? How long has this been happening and was it gradual and now is worse? Any noises related to wen this happens? All the parts you listed, were they all just installed and then started with the problem?

 

[Doubeleive]

sounds like a pretty odd steering problem for the alignment tech to not mention that parts are worn, usually if it's that bad they can't even get it aligned or they would have told you there was a problem. take a flashlight and get under the truck and see if anything has come loose or broken.

 

[OR VietVet]

When under there, with the light, have someone start the engine and move the steering wheel from 9 to 3 o'clock and watch all steering linkage knuckles and see if they roll and pivot like they should or do you see up and down play at the ball knuckles. Check for all steering mount points and anything that shows a flex or crack at the frame areas. IMO, the proper way to check for ball joint play is to put a floor jack as close to the lower ball joint as you can get and jack up till the tire is off the ground about 1-2 inches and then take a long pry bar and wedge under at 6 o'clock and pry up and release and see if the lower ball joint has up and down, vertical play that you can see the ball move in and out of the socket. Then grab the tire at 12 and 6 and rock in and out at the top and bottom and check play at the upper ball joint. Grab the tire at 3 and 9 and push/pull on each side to double check for any steering linkage excessive play.

Any impacts with the tires/wheels recently? Make sure control arm mounts are tight. This as well as answering all the other questions I asked earlier.