Play In Steering?

richface109 · March 8, 2011

i bought my 93 silverado k1500 about 2 months ago...its sittin at around 245K and the only thing noticeably wrong with it is there is about 2 inches of play in the steering wheel...one friend of mine said my gear box needed to be tightened so he tightened it up...that didnt change anything at all...(the steering wheel is canted at about a 90 degree angle than what it should be...so i need an alignment...but thats not gonna fix the problem)then my 1SG(im in the army) told me that the problem was more than likely the tie rods...but could be more components of the suspension...so i turn to you guys...who have more experience in these matters than me the newbie...any help/advice you could provide would be greatly appreciated...thanks

cvandegna · March 9, 2011

Tie rod ends and ball joints are the usual suspects. Probably worth checking the wheel bearings since you're going to have stuff apart. My '04 needs em all, so am digging through tips myself...

dover179 · March 10, 2011

Pretty much everything in the steering gets loose on those trucks. Check tie rod ends inner and outer, idler and pitman arms, also look at the rag joint (might be worn out with 250K on it).

richface109 · March 15, 2011

Thanks guys...i appreciate it...im gonna rip her apart this weekend...ill let ya know what the problem was

richface109 · March 27, 2011

so wow...this job was a pain in the ass...first off ive never done this before so i had a more experienced guy pretty much tell me how to do it...we pulled the wheels off and the tie rods needed to be replaced but were not the culprit...the pitman arm was bad and needed to be replaced...so we ended up replacing the steering linkage(the bushings were extremely worn), the inner and outer tie rods and finally the pitman arm...i went to auto zone and got the pitman arm puller and the pitman arm wedge...we were able to get the puller on one side but werent able to get it on the side by the gear box due to the cross member being in the way...so we tried the wedge...the forks on it were too narrow and apparently they dont make one wider than what i had...i went to oreillys, auto zone, napa, and advanced auto parts...finally i said screw it and we made it wider with a hand grinder...we ended up beating the hell out of it till it came off...after that we pulled the steering column out along with the gear box so that we wouldnt have to get back under the truck to put the new pitman arm on...once it was back on though we were good...we started on the pitman arm around 10am and finished around 4pm...due to all the running around ...

SRTCop3 · March 29, 2011

so wow...this job was a pain in the ass...first off ive never done this before so i had a more experieniced guy pretty much tell me how to do it...we pulled the wheels off and the tie rods needed to be replaced but were not the culprit...the pitman arm was bad and needed to be replaced...so we ended up replacing the steering linkage(the bushings were extremely worn), the inner and outer tie rods and finally the pitman arm...i went to auto zone and got the pitman arm puller and the pitman arm wedge...we were able to get the puller on one side but werent able to get it on the side by the gear box due to the cross member being in the way...so we tried the wedge...the forks on it were too narrow and apparently they dont make one wider than what i had...i went to oreillys, auto zone, napa, and advanced auto parts...finally i said screw it and we made it wider with a hand grinder...we ended up beating the hell out of it till it came off...after that we pulled the steering column out along with the gear box so that we wouldnt have to get back under the truck to put the new pitman arm on...once it was back on though we were good...we started on the pitman arm around 10am and finished around 4pm...due to all the running around ...

So what do you think solved the issue, or did you replace so much that its hard to tell? I have a 95 K1500 with the same problem.

richface109 · April 17, 2011

well the play in the steering is fixed...no longer have that problem...that was due to the pitman arm i am almost positive...however...i cannot get it aligned yet because when you jack the truck up and grab the tire you can move it side to side...im thinking wheel bearings maybe? i dunno...this thing has so many miles on it im willing to bet that id be better off replacing the entire front end....so i dunno...im just going to have to piece by piece it i guess...