Replacing steering box?? Or what ?

[mountie]

I sure hope the ball joints were inspected. Here is what typically happens. Ball joints wear excessively on a high mileage vehicle which cause tires to constantly be trying to move toe in and toe out just slightly up to alot depending on how bad the ball joints are. All this side to side motion causes the output shaft of the steering gearbox to wiggle side to side and ruin the seal at that output shaft and not to mention the gearbox. Its hard to find until you know to look for it. Have to get someone to move steering wheel just slightly to the right and left back and forth and watch that output shaft.

Good info……. My front steering & suspension / balljoints etc. is new, installed by a VERY good custom truck shop along with Hellwig sway bars, about 6 months ago, along with them doing a front/rear alignment …. Then had my tires a ‘road-force’ balancing.
>> Just got back, getting the alignment….

My ’05 truck rides like an S Class Mercedes at speed.

 

[mountie]

I sure hope the ball joints were inspected. Here is what typically happens. Ball joints wear excessively on a high mileage vehicle which cause tires to constantly be trying to move toe in and toe out just slightly up to alot depending on how bad the ball joints are. All this side to side motion causes the output shaft of the steering gearbox to wiggle side to side and ruin the seal at that output shaft and not to mention the gearbox. Its hard to find until you know to look for it. Have to get someone to move steering wheel just slightly to the right and left back and forth and watch that output shaft.

My whole front suspension & tierods, etc are new. My new steering box was hand built w/ all new parts including , they did the seal fixes that the GM version was known to fail.

 

[HudsonRoyce]

I once had seepage on my 99 Silverado rack and pinion, so I added some Lucas stop leak. This was like in 2011 and I didn't know better.

A few days later making a turn on a shopping center from the main street, the steering got locked after turning left. I couldn't recenter the steering wheel. It was crazy! I sat there for about 15 minutes, shutting and restarting the engine, until I finally got it working again. Luckily I wasn't far from home, and went straight back. I immediately called my mechanic and he told me to drive it over there. Leaving my home street, it happened again, but it wasn't as bad. In both cases, there was no traffic, but I could have had an accident.

The only thing I was able to conclude is the very high viscosity of the stop leak somehow caused some hydraulic line to temporarily clog. IDK. That was my original rack and my mechanic replaced it and never had that problem again.

This may not apply to the gearbox setup though (probably exclusive to rack and pinion systems), but just thought I would share my experience. That was my first and last time using stop leak. Lol⠀⠀⠀

Yeah that’s exactly why I stay away from stop leak. It might help short term, but the risk of clogging something in the system just isn’t worth it, especially with steering.