steering rack and shaft issue

[greensolutions]

I just bought a 2002 mountaineer and ive been poking around the forum for the past few days to try and figure out the front end issues ive been having. The truck has some slight play in the steering wheel and horrible bump steer and overall feeling very sloopy. It also had noise coming from the front wheel bearings and play in the front tires when pulling back and forth at 12 and 6 although i negleted to check the 9 and 3 movement while the tires where up in the air. The day after I bought the truck I jacked it up to get a good look at it and to my disbalief the front driveshaft was missing. While the truck was off and in park I grabed the front dif yoke and there was about a 1/2 inch of play back and forth so I assumed the front differential was blown. No big deal i thought, ill get to that before the winter. All the other front end componets seemed tight and ok but i did neglect to check any of the steering componets. So I replaced both front wheel bearing assemblys today hoping it would solve most off my problems. While it did stop the noise and tighten up the front end a bit, I still have overall sloopy steering and bad bump steer. So after some more research I started checking the steering componets. I had my wife turn the wheel slightly back and forth while the truck was off and on the ground. I could see no play in the tie rods or ball joints but if I grabed the tie rods I could feel the play threw them. Next I checked the steering shaft and not only felt the play but could easily push the shaft back and forth and it had play on both the fire wall side and the intermediate shaft side but the boot was good on the intermediate side. I could also twist the shaft back and forth about a 1/2 inch with ease. So my questions are, should there be any play at all in the shaft, gearbox, or front dif? Is there an adjustment on the rack assembly that may tighten up the steering in the mean time? Could the bad front dif be transmitting vibration and play into the steering? And to all you explorer vets out there, what should be the next thing I should replace? The shaft or the rack? Or are both most likley bad? Thanks in advance. This is my first post but this forum seems to be a very resourceful place with very nice and intelligent people and I look forward to learning from you guys and helping others when I can.

 

[fusseli]

Have you any way to diagnose the steering rack? Seems like there's been a few threads lately about racks going bad. As for your missing front drive shaft, that's a bad sign. Your t-case is most likely shot and the person that sold you the vehicle pulled it to hide the symptoms.