Lundee

Ok so I just did a ton of front end work and now my steering wheel is 90 degrees the wrong way. How do ya fix the darn thing?

PaulDaisy

Loosen up the collar on the cross link attached to the pittman arm and turn it. If you look down in front of the front axle it will be apparent what to turn.

06RAM2500

You could have a body shop do it. Get it more accurate. Surprised who ever did the front end work didn't align the front end.

Floorman

have it aligned i just did a bunch of work as well you can get it close but not perfect

Red3quarter

I agre with Floorman, you need an alignment. I replace all my front end parts in december and had the same problem. Took it to get aligned and no more crooked wheel.

dozer12216

Unless you fubarbed something the front end man should have made straight.
Is it 4WD. Align techs don't want to do as service manual instructs.
On 4WD one should center steering gear and steering wheel should be centered also. If not, shaft splines are misaligned.
Set right toe with wheel centered by adjust steering rod. Now set left toe with long tie rod. Job done.

prattman

As long as the truck drives straight you can adjust the drag link to straighten the steering wheel. As PaulDaisy said loosen the collar and adjust accordingly. A friend of mine installed a DT ProFab track bar on his 12 valve and the steering wheel ended up being 90 degrees off. He came over and we adjusted the drag link to center the steering wheel. Problem solved. Adjusting the drag link does not affect the front end alignment. If the truck is pulling you have other issues.

gmctd

Best advice is the alignment first - even if you had matched thread-counts\dimensions, alignment would still be off due to production tolerances - the more you screw with the adjustments, the worse it'll be

SIXSLUG

Its pretty hard to get the pitman arm aon wrong....there is a large notch on it that helps get it on right. Get it aligned if they didn't do it already, the shop that did mine's rack was proven to be out of whack after I had my truck back in there twice. They got the rack realligned and realligned my truck. It wasn't out too much but it doesn't take a whole lot. My steering wheel was still just a little off so I adjusted it like described above to get it dead on. Put a bright colored zip tie at the top center of your wheel sticking straight up and you can see it thru the windshield and get it close, then tweak it from there. You'll get some resistance from the tires so test drive it and tweak as needed. Good luck, its pretty easy to fix, Kurt

Lundee

I put on a DT pro fab trac bar, steering shaft stabalizer, shocks, skyjacker 2.5" lift springs, and brakes. I just want it straight untill my new rims and tires come in (should be w/in the next week or 2). Then I'll have the tire shop do an alignment. I can say the diffrence from before and after I did the work is night and day anybody w/ loose sterring or death wobble I highly recommend. It may not look cool, or make ya go faster but, it's a great piece of mind going down the road (and well worth 10 hours under the truck).Thanks for the help. Great idea w/ the zip-tie Kurtaing

01RAMer

The track bar is more than likely to have caused your problem. I got the adjustable one for mine and was able the straighten the wheel by adjusting the trackbar. It took a couple of tries but now it's right on. If yours is adjustable, this is your answer.

SIXSLUG

I wouldn't fool w/ the trac bar. I think there is some confusion as to the parts being identified by the correct name. The trac bar is the heavy contoured arm that holds the front axle in the correct position under the truck re:left to right or perpendicular to the frame. The drag link is the adjustable bar that is pulled to the left or right to activate movement of the tires for steering. This is connected to the pitman arm on the bottom of the steering box. Adjusting the sleeve on the drag link is the proper way to adjust the steering wheel orientation. Hope this clears up some stuff. Kurt

01RAMer

If you read the threads you'll see that many of the people who changed out only the track bar ended up with steering wheel alignment problems, and yes, with an adjustable trackbar you can set everything back to original baseline without changing anything else. The side to side wheel position will be correct. Now if you don't have an adjustable track bar and other things were also changed or adjusted, then everything will have to be realigned. In this case your solution is one of the adjustments that will have to be made. If in fact the track bar was changed and the steering wheel didn't change position, then of course it's not the track bar.

SIXSLUG

I can see where that would make sense, but if he had everything else replaced at the same time the usual way to straighten the steering wheel,after alignment, is with the drag link sleeve. Much easier too! Kurt

Lundee

By rights the trac bar shouldn't have anything to do w/ the steering it adjusts lateral movement. I've got an adjustable trac bar that came w/ a gauge to align the axle in the center of the vehicle.I've adjusted the drag link and the steering wheel sits straight now. I think just the removal of all the componets I replaced and beating on everything bumped the steering wheel out a little. It's all good now the trucks like new, up next is a whole new poly replacement kit and my rims and tires .........