You all may recall my issues with a severely shaky front end in my 58 Suburban from several months back. Problem turned out to be very out of round front tires. I believe the previous owner left the Burb parked next to his house for a quite a while. Got new front tires and problem was solved.
Aside from the tire shake at high speed, the truck always drove great. No free play in the wheel, didn't pull one way or the other and stopped straight and true.
Around that time someone suggested that adjusting the pre-load on the steering box might help with the shimmy. I followed the procedures in the shop manual. I loosened the large ring nut on the bottom/front of the steering box and then tightened the large flat adjuster. I think I may have overtightened it.
Well, what started as a rock solid steering is now all over the place. I've developed almost a half a turn of free play/slop in the wheel. The truck will dive to one side or the other going around a corner or on a crown in the road. During my vacuum gauge driving test on the highway it was borderline unsafe.
I'm disgusted that I "adjusted" a perfectly good steering box into something unsafe to drive. Does anyone have any ideas? Can I "readjust" it somehow to tighten it back up? Do I need to rebuild it? If so, is that a hard job?
Help!! I can't take this white knuckle driving.
