I've been finishing up a few things on ol' green and I decided to adjust my reman, yes reman, steering box because the steering has always had some slop between 11 to 1 o' clock. I adjusted it the center screw about 1/8 of a turn and test drove it on the skyway bridge highway (it's about 400 ft in the air and has grooved pavement) there is now zero slop and I don't have to constantly adjust my wheel. If you have slop in your' steering do this adjustment before spending $150 and hours of labor to replace the box. Only do this adjustment after checking every joint for free play! Only adjust the box 1/8 of a turn at a time and turn the wheel lock to lock to verify that the steering is not binding.

 

Things can very wrong when us mere mortals mess with that. 1/8 of a turn and no binding pointed straight ahead....maybe you will live!

 

Yep I love how some people act like if you mess with that adjustment you'll bind the steering and ram into a van with a family in it. I've done this adjustment on my old 92 crown vic, 93 f-150 and a F-450 at work all of those vehicles had zero issues, heck the F-450 is still on the road doing service work. Can bad things happen? Yes! Will they happen if you make sure the steering isn't binding lock to lock? Nope! Those bad things happen when somebody messes with the pre-load not knowing that it's a tie rod that has play and not the box. I always check the front end myself and take it to a couple of trustworthy shops to make sure the front end is tight before I mess with it.

 

I feel lucky that I've never had slop, even with the worn parts I had prior to replacing everything.

 

I have the worst luck when it comes to slop Granted most of the vehicles I've owned (with steering box) had well over 200k so I suppose that's to be expected. I didn't have a whole lot of slop really but I'm laid off so I figured why not get the steering perfect. Does tick me off that the reman wasn't adjusted before it left the factory, the adjuster was backed out %100 haha.