Anyone know where the steering gear lash adjustment is?

[Randee of the Redwoods]

I know this isn't a DIESEL question, but it is mounted on a DIESEL truck(my Ebay truck, at that).
New pitman arm is on. Made one helluva difference in steering. But, I still have a considerable amount of play. At first, I thought the new arm was bad. A quick check showed showed a tight steering arm(the rod ends used to rattle if you shook them hard enough due to the bad ball joint in the arm). Now it looks as if there is just play in the steering gear itself. I thought or knew of a lash adjustment you could make to compensate for wear over time. I'm hoping I can use this to dial out some of the play enough to get a bit more steering feel back. Know what I'm talking about?

[Mainous]

There is a allen bolt on the top cover of the steering box with a lock nut on it. Loosen the lock nut and tighten the allen screw. A little bit gopes a long way. 1/8 turn will generally do the job.

[turbovair]

BTW....Once the adjustment bolt flushes up with the lock nut,you are done, Its time to consider a replacement box.

[GARY PAGE]

Toe in the of fronts will make a world of difference. If it

[ulhpilot]

A worn idler arm can cause steering slop. The early (pre '92.5) with the 2 bolt arm were bad for this, not sure if the 3 bolt arms were as bad. Might want to check.

[rjwest]

Idler Arm wears First, Than check pitman arm and
tie rods. The Steering box is not really adjustable for wear , My 93 went 200k , changed box but it did not fix loose steering, Pump was warn out, low pressure...

[catmandoo]

one thing you might experience if it's too tight is it will be a little tight at the center point if you set and work the steering wheel back and forth with the front end off the ground you will feel it get tight when the wheels are straight if it does you need to back off til it's gone.

[turbovair]

rjwest,
did you say that a new PS pump improved your on-center feel?I too have a new box, but still have poor on-center feel.I also noticed that when I removed the ABS fuse, on-center feel tended to inprove slightly.

[rjwest]

Made a big differance... Not back to new standards,
but it tracked much straighter, especially on crowned roads.... I had changed the pitman/ idler (they wree lasting about 60k miles until I started doing
my own grees jobs )and the power steering .
and steering shaft ( rag joint ).

each made some improvement, but Pump was biggest
differance in tracking/wandering....

Did have 200K miles at that time....never did the ball joints, seemed ok, but i'm sure there was some play there too.