"Loose" steering?

[bigDerk]

The steering in my Explorer feels quite loose, like there is a lot of play in the wheel when I am going straight. It will rock left to right about 2" or so without turning the wheels at all. Once the wheel gets past that 2", it turns the wheels fine, but while the steering wheel is straight, it's got plenty of play in it. I've got 31x10.50's on 15x8's with 3.625" offset. It has always been like this, but seems to be worse now. Is there anything I can adjust to tighten the steering, or is it simply the wheel/tire combo I am running? I'm sure it could use an alignment, it tracks a little to the left when I have the wheel straight, I think I knocked that out of whack while wheelin' sometime. In a month or so I'm gonna put the stock wheels and tires back on and put the truck back to stock height, so we'll see if that fixes it... if not I'll have to check out anything you guys can suggest, because I don't have any more ideas...

 

[X24]

when i had my 93 (stock) it did that. my friends 91 (also stock) does it too. i know that a lot of older F150's did that too. probably not a big deal.

 

[Capt Buck]

Big Derk,

The Ford Twin traction beam front end can be a mess
to get to track straight. I've had 2 Explorers,an F-150 andnow have a 92 xly Explorer and a 93 Bronco XLT.
The front steering and suspension are all basically the same on these trucks. My Explorer has 31x10.50's like yours, but with no lift and tracks fine. Some things to check are: make sure all your tie rod and drag link
ends are tight, check your ball joints ,loose ball joints seem to make the truck "road walk". The caster is adjustable with eccentric bushings, and I always ask the wrench at the alignment garage to turn in the maximum toe-in setting to compensate for the bad steering when towing. Tire pressure will make a differance in tracking feel also. I run my 31's at 28 psi
and they handle and wear fine. Many times tire shops will put what's printed on the side of the tire. This is the tire pressure for maximum load,you are running the same weight vehicle on a larger tire, so you don't need as much pressure to support the vehicle. Go to a car park some where, rub a piece of chalk across thr tread surface and drive the truck in a straight line for about 300 yards and look at how much tire patch contact you have. If the tire is over inflated, you will be riding on the middle of the tread. Try to get a full width tire contact patch, and see what you come up with for tire pressure. Sorry about the length of the post!

 

[kvo]

Does the '94 X have steering stabilizer? If not, this may help.