Thank you for everyone's help first of all!

I had an issue where my alternator would not charge and it turned out to be a dirty connection at the interior fuse panel at the engine fuse. A little scraping with a knife blade and it did the trick. Runs and charges like a champ. It needs to be timed more accurately but for now I'll deal with it running rich and the hole in my muffler. Oh well.

The question that I have may very well deal with the fact that up until now, I have driven a lot of different types of vehicles but nothing like this. Never been behind the wheel of a solid front axle truck in my life.

The steering seems to be quite sloppy and wander quite a bit. It takes a lot of concentration to drive and while it is drivable, it is not comfortable for me.

The bad:

- I have between 1/8th to 1/4th slop in my steering wheel
- It likes to follow grooves in the road (like those left by semi's at red lights) a little too much (seemingly to the left but could just be my luck)
- The steering wheel is somewhat crooked but it drives straight (about 10* or so clockwise)
- It seems to wander a little bit more noticeably when braking (always to the left)

The good:

- Over even rather violent bumps in the road I don't seem to experience bump steering
- It drives straight down smooth road
- When it is parked and I just move the steering wheel back and forth I only have 1/16th of a turn at most before I can see response in the wheels (the slack seems to come from the pitman arm/draglink connection which maybe travels 1/2" at most inside of the draglink) which all seems normal to me and completely acceptible
- I replaced the steering stabilizer recently just because
- The tie rod appears to be solid as hell (with no bends) and the tie rod ends don't seem to have any play in them at all!

The back story that I can see mattering would be that I did replace all of the suspension at all 4 corners. I have not had an alignment but aside from sloppy steering, it doesn't feel like I need one. I also have 31x13.5"x15R tires on it.

Is there a simple cure all for this steering that will just tighten everything up and make it more responsive? Get an alignment? Replace tie rod ends anyway? Rebuild my draglink? I can do this stuff but I am trying not to spend anymore money on this for awhile.

More to the point...is this just generally how I should assume this truck will drive no matter what and there is nothing I can do to get it really tight (potentially due to the push/pull steering etc.)?

Thanks for the input.

 

The other question that I have involves my tires specifically.

They are Mickey Thompson Baja Belted 31x13.5x15R.

They are currently inflated to about 35 psi in the front and 32 psi in the rear. Is this too much? I couldn't find a recommended pressure for them. They seem to bulge up in the center line of the tread all the way around the tires so the edges of the tread don't seem to make as good of contact as they should.

Should I drop some pressure from them? Down to 20-25 psi or so? Thanks again! Could this be the source of my entire problem?

 

Try tightening up the ends of the drag link. Pull cotter pin, screw in the end cap and put the pin back in.

 

25 year old steering components and system is going to be sloppy. Yet to get in one that didn't wander when driving but all mine tracked straight. It's just old technology and isn't going to feel or ever drive like a new truck. Now if you go to high steer and upgrade that's another story.

 

As far as tightening up the draglink, I already tried that. The screw caps of the draglink seem to be seized and will likely not move no matter how much pb blaster i shoot at it. I've accepted that if the draglink needs rebuilt, it will need cut off and just replaced.

Which brings me to rabbit's point...for the cost of a new replacement draglink, I may as well save up for a histeer conversion.

Do you have any links for reputable and recommended dealers of the conversion? I checked marlincrawler.com because I thought they use to sell a kit but couldn't find it.

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one with sloppy steering at least.

 

You need about 3" of lift to convert to high crossover steering.

Lots of folks sell a kit.