I have a 1982 4X4 longbed pickup with manual steering. I will eventually convert it to power steering with salvaged power steering parts in a couple of weeks, and use a power steering box and components from a used truck in an all-vintage toyota salvage yard I near me. But first, I'd like to question each area of the steering system to find as much information as possible about what may cause steering wobble at certain speeds. The speed range mentioned in the title of this thread has the speed at which the wobble goes away listed as the higher of the two numbers in the speed range.

I am searching for experience with steering wobble, and it's possible problem areas. There are four problem areas I can identify:

1) steering box. I am pretty sure mine has some slack in it. Without a buddy system check of where the slack shows up first when moving the steering wheel, I believe it is mainly or all in the steering box, upon initial evaluation. I pushed on each tie rod in the steering system while removing all the grease/mud from the Birfield joints in preparation for rebuilding them. (I have all the parts and most of the materials, but not the perfect weekend yet!)

2) tie rods. I replaced these on a truck I had once, as part of a steering/ front suspension rebuild I did. (1992 2WD Chevy S-10). While a lot of the steering slack was gone, (I also replaced ball joints), some slack remained. I don't know how much was permissable from the factory, but I didn't replace the steering gearbox with a rebuilt one. There was no visible steering shaft damper or u-joints I can remember, but that may have been a slack area too, I was less experienced then as a home hobby mechanic. The only thing I didn't replace was the Pitman Arm (I didn't see how that would have caused any slack in my case, since a tie rod with tapered fit connected to it, and it's connection to the steering box was solid.)

3) Wheel Bearings/ Birfield joints: I have the entire Marlin Crawler Birfield joint rebuild kit for my front end. I got it because of the grease/ gear oil buildup on the steering knuckles, the wobble I experience when driving at the aforementioned speed ranges, and because a friend suggested that the joints don't look very happy leaking like they do, just from his visual inspection. I do intend to rebuild them, and thanks to ToyoSpearo's writeup, I am confident that I can complete the rebuild on a weekend once I find time and get situated. I identify these steering knuckles as a possible cause of the wobble only because these joints contain bearings on which steering and wheel rotation rely. The truck was sold to me with swamper tires on extra wide rims, which I promptly got rid of. They definitely caused extra stress on the wheel bearings and steering bearings, and all the way down the line to the steering box, since there is so much more force put into all of the components through larger/wider tires and rims.

4)steering damper: I have not yet owned a 4wd truck, let alone one with a steering damper. That is part of the reason I put this on the list, since it is an unknown item, but I do have some awareness of why it exists in the steering system. I have never used one on my off-road motorcycles, but on the truck, it seems to be a more intrinsic part of the steering system than with off-road or dual-sport motorcycles. It is built in to stabilize the steering system against some sort of shock. I also have no experience with IFS 4X4 systems, so I don't know if they also have one just as a part of the 4X4 steering system. My unfamiliarity with them plays a part in my suspicion of it as part of the problem. The rubber mounts on mine are looking cracked, but the damper's body looks clean, and looks to have been replaced at a somewhat recent time in the truck's life of 33 years.

I seek to gain information on what goes bad in the steering system that causes slack and wobble in the steering wheel. While I have my suspicions set based on my experience and observations, I am open to new suggestions too. Please feel free to share your experience in whatever problems and solutions in straight axle 4X4 steering that you may have. All thoughtful input and experience is welcome and encouraged! Thanks!

 

I'd say u need a good wheel balance. U can check algnment yourself if ya think about it, think its +-0.

Bad tire

Its cheap and easy to install a draglink connector kit, one of the first things i did.

Dampner wont effect wobble

Read service manual on adjusting steering box

?I'd like to figure how to get that play out of the steering column where it telescopes for crash. maybe inject silicone is my first thought?

 

I did have the wheels balanced when I had the tires mounted to the rims. My dad did find a wheel weight in the driveway that may have popped off, but it was a pretty small one, and probably wouldn't make a big huge difference. I think I figured out where it was originally set, but I am pretty sure it fell off again.

My memory of this slight problem is not very clear as far as how often I've felt it, but you're right, it does resemble poorly balanced wheels. The shop I had mount and balance is more of a mechanic than a tire shop, they just mount tires because they can. They're right next to my workplace, I'll see if they have a policy of taking care of balancing issues if their wheel weights pop off. It's a neighbor, so I hope they'll be good to me and do warranty service. Before I put them through the trouble though, I may try rotating the rear wheels to the front to see if that corrects it. If so, I will drop it off and let them know that a wheel weight fell off.

I THINK I do remember that this wobbly problem has been happening to varying degrees since I got it. It is also influenced by the angle of the road side to side in addition to the speed ranges mentioned. I'll rotate wheels front to back and if it changes, ask to have the wheels re-balanced. If not, I will follow through with tightening up the front steering system eveywhere as I had planned to do already, especially and hopefully finding a lightly used power steering box and all the other gear associated with it and converting my truck to power steering!

 

Is yours consistent or occasional? Consistent wobbling, combined with your find of a wheel weight, points to an unbalanced wheel. Furthermore, just because a wheel is balanced with primitive equipment (t.i not a Roadforce balancer) doesn't mean it's actually balanced at speed.

I had a very occasional wobble at 45 that got better if I accelerated, worse if I slowed down, terrible as I came to a stop, and vanished entirely when I took off again. This was with a brand-new steering damper, tight steering, and tires that rode smooth at 60. I still don't know the cause but people suggested wheelbearings, spring shackle bushings, and that my extra-low-backspacing wheels (which I have since ditched for bone-stock steelies) exacerbated whatever it was.

 

It is always between those speeds when it does happen, in those two speed windows. Sometimes it does not happen in those speed windows, and usually that is a flat, straight section of road or highway. It is worst, again only in those two speed windows, on country roads where the grade of the road tilts side to side. Odd tilt angles at speed make it worst.

I think it is a combination of slight out-of-balance wheels maybe, combined with an amount of steering slack that allows the only slight out-of-balance to show up in the steering wheel as pronounced as it does.

That being said, I could try to get the shop to fix the balance issue, but I have a significant amount of steering slop that seems to me now to reside mostly in the box. But it could be the slack between the two wheels via the tie rod ends that rattles against the steering box slack while the wheels rotate and try to achieve balance.

Since I'm looking into upgrading to power steering, I may have my choice of power steering gearboxes which would take care of that part of the slack equation, if it is a factor. I also tooled up on Birfield joint gear and got the big socket that makes the rebuild a higher quality, and a bearing race driver kit to make sure the bearing races are fully and squarely driven in. I also got the full Birfield joint rebuild kit with Marlin Crawler parts including all bearings and seals all the way down to the locking hub gaskets. I had to do a lot of cleaning on the weekend I thought I was going to be rebuilding them, there was a lot of greasy mud. But the hemispherical areas of the axle housing are not pitted, thanks to the grease leaking out and coating them.

The grease I bought for the knuckle rebuild is the type suited for Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, I think Valvoline brand. I only got one grease gun tube, but upon further consideration, may need up to 2 more tubes of that size. I think someone who rebuilt theirs said you have to pack the entire steering knuckle housing in this type of grease. Actually, they used a non-moly-fortified kind which someone called them out on, but I'm going to be using moly-fortified. It was more about the quantity of packing the entire knuckle housing I was talking about though. This may be off topic, I digress.

Steps needed to take care of this may be out of order, but I think I'll first address the balancing of the wheels either by doing a test and swapping the rear for the front, than since I've got everything but time, do the birfield rebuild with what I've got, and then on to the other stuff I'll list below.

Say, just a thought: I noticed that there are two square headed plugs in the steering knuckle housing. I think they are both at the top. Could I maybe adapt a grease zerk to one of them and pump away or use a pneumatic grease gun to fill the entire knuckle housing once it is assembled to save on messiness of manually packing them and then assembling? Or are they for something else?

The other stuff:
-steering box, power steering. There may be a rebuilt one available for purchase through a company that rebuilds them. Then it would surely be slack-free due to the rebuilding of it.
-after that and the Birfield rebuild: if neccesary, drag link end fittings, and tie rod ends. I know an alignment on this solid straight axle is only a matter of toe-in or toe-out. There is no camber or caster. A friend of mine did his with a tape measure to the front and back of the edges of his tires on two trucks, the second of which passed the inspection of an alignment shop right away. So there's that.

 

The mechanic I had the used tires mounted by checked them for balance today, free of charge, and says they are balanced. He noted that the wear is uneven, and I think he is right in two ways:

First, they are more worn in the middle than the edges. That is pretty obvious when you look at them.

Second, he noticed something I didn't, but should have: the edges with more tread left than the center are also not worn evenly on all the tires. I think it's because the truck they were on during most of their life had independent front suspension, and might have had worn ball joints. So one edge had more tread than the other in his evaluation, and I believe he was right based on the circumstances and my quick re-inspection while talking to him. I think this last detail explains why different road tilted conditions affect the wobble, at the speed ranges previously described.

I think if I were to find the ones that have flat tread which were on the rear straight axle of the vehicle they were on previously for most of their life and rotated them up front, I might notice a difference. But the two big things I need to do to eliminate the wobble are:

-remove steering slack from the system. Whatever needs done, be it new steering box, tie rod and/or drag link ends, even maybe the birfield joints could be a factor. Wherever the slack is, the wobble I feel in the steering wheel while driving would be tightened way up if there is no slack in the steering for it to go to or move within.
-new tires. Obvious, but costly. And since I'm moving across the country in the next few months, I would have wanted the ones I have now to be the tires I use up the rest of the tread on, during the trip. Maybe I'll rebuild the steering system enough that I will have less slack and therefore less room for the wobble to happen in. Maybe also I'll rotate them to where I have the more even tread tires on the front to where they were when the truck that originally wore them was. That would put the tires flatter on the ground, but to what extent, I don't know.

I think the way to go is start by my birfield joint rebuild, do it perfectly and to a T, and get it packed up with the right amount of the right kind of grease, and go from there. I've been getting too drunk on the weekends to make it happen on time and done, plus since it's a first-time big job, I've been considering all the details like how much and which moly fortified grease I'll need to be able to fill the steering knuckle housings.

This is all for now, I will check back when I've made further progress!

 

I'm not aware of any condition that would cause the center of a tire to wear more than both edges, except high inflation pressures or tires that are too wide for the rim.

I highly doubt the Birfields have anything to do with this. They aren't supposed to spin when you're in 2wd.

I used Valvoline Cerulean grease for everything when I semi-rebuilt my front axle. It's moly-fortified and had some impressive numbers on various wear tests.

Fix the slack and check back. (...Jack)

 

I know what you mean, Jack, but these were not my tires for most of their lives. Over-inflation and too wide a tire for the rim can cause the condition I'm dealing with. I think they're both a factor. Oh well, I'll get some new tire soon enough.
I appreciate your input. :-)

 

Correct; I forgot about that one. The point is - I've neither heard of nor can imagine how alignment or other steering or suspension issues can cause that wear pattern.

By the way, I just completed and tested a stock PS conversion in my 81 (that has a 20R for some reason). I used to behold Armstrong steering as a matter of pride, but I gotta say... I'm not going back.