Ford falcon Xd Ute

brendoooo, Jul 31, 5:03am
Does anyone know if a worn steering iderler will cause 1 to 2 inches of free play just moving the steering wheel from side to side on an xd falcon ute

typhoon666, Jul 31, 5:27am
Is it a manual steering box!

brendoooo, Jul 31, 5:28am
nah its auto

brendoooo, Jul 31, 5:37am
I mean idler

zephyrheaven, Jul 31, 5:50am
Steering box adjust / pitman arms are cheap as chips & wear quickly on em too

fordcrzy, Jul 31, 7:24pm
those steerig systems have heaps of play in them anyway. we replaced the idler with a brand new complete unit and it wasnt much better. the design of the steering box meanss you will always have lots of play. our xf which was very low K and in good nick had pplay aswell

mike77, Aug 1, 12:41am
Had one of those steering boxes rebuilt, and it tightened everything up. Still a little bit of play, but acceptable.
Was fairly cheap from what I remember.

franc123, Aug 1, 12:51am
They only have play because people don't know how to check and set them up properly, it takes knowhow and practice and replacement of things if they are worn. Its possible to almost get them as good as an r&p if you persist with them. The gregorys manual gives a good rundown on the steering box setup procedure, the factory manual an even better one.

kdcentralni, Aug 1, 3:35am
stop winning I had too turn the wheel half turn to get my demon straight, play in the wheel tried to jump out and grab cars going the other way.

zephyrheaven, Aug 1, 7:03am
Used to replace the saddle in the box a bit too, cheap from memory & make a bit of difference. Check lower ball joints (shake wheel left to right while a mate watches the lower bj's moving an inch left & right lol) as they wear heaps on those

fordcrzy, Aug 1, 7:23am
just to avoid confusion, i was talking about the idler arm as opposed to the main worm/roller steering box. ALL worm/roller boxes are never going to be as tight as a rack and pinion system

franc123, Aug 1, 7:43am
There still shouldn't be any measurable freeplay in the steering wheel, it isn't set up right and/or something is worn if there is. The manual boxes tended to be more vague on straight ahead being so low in ratio, but the power ones should not.