Hard Spots in Steering

[qwerty]

Hello,

This is my first post because I could not find any good information by searching. My steering wheel seems to get stuck about every 1/4 turn. It has been this way about 3 months and has not gotten any worse. I have flushed the fluid as best I could but saw no improvement. Also it seems to come loose if I hit a pot hole when turning.

It seems like it might be a U Joint because it is every quarter turn but I am not sure where it would be located.

Has anyone else experienced this?

The car is a 1997 4wd with 275,000 miles, new sway bar links and ball joints. Original shocks, PS pump, tie rod ends.

Any help or advise is appreciated.

 

[mr_valingo]

My bet would be the joint on top of the power steering rack. Get yourself some lithium spray grease and spray some in that joint. If it smooths out thats your problem

 

[Xplorer82]

My money is on the tie rods, especially if they are original w/them miles. I had the same issue w/some cheap ebay tie rods I installed. 4 months later I had the same symptoms as you and thought it was the u-joint on the shaft, nope it was the tie rods.

As stated above, You can easily grease/lube the joint on the shaft as I did and see if it helps, but I highly doubt it will, check them tie rods. Inner and outters.

 

[qwerty]

Well it seems that it was the U joint as far as I can tell. I sprayed some lubricate on it and after about a day everything was back to normal. I was quite surprised that the problem went away entirely. I will say that the problem first started after I let the car sit for about a week when I went on vacation so maybe the joint just dried out.