Exactly as was stated above. If you replace a part and the symptoms change you should keep looking at that part. I may have replaced the other things that were known to be bad, as you did, but if the symptoms became more pronounced after that I would go back to what caused the original problem. Or I should say the secondary problem in this case. I am a mechanic and I do this for a living, when I worked for Mercedes I was the guy that got all the "problem" cars and many times it was people that wouldn't believe that a replaced part could cause a problem. It was hard to diagnose if it was a different shop that did the repair and sometimes took a lot of questioning of the customer to find out exactly what happened. Don't feel bad, there were a lot of techs at the dealership that were "factory trained" but still wouldn't really get it.

A lot of people like to diagnose over the internet but it's hard to pinpoint much of anything without actually seeing or driving the vehicle. I'm sorry for the unhelpful comments but I saw, and still see, similar scenarios so often that it just irks me. I'm glad you finally got your truck driving as it should and I bet you'll know what to check next time something like this happens.

 

Yep you are right all too often we do make this mistake.

A warning to those out there: Moog does include with thier parts a disclaimer that it will take 500-1000 miles for the joints to wear in and loosen up. aside from a mild resistance to return to center which moog claimed was normal the major problem of continued wander and deteriorating steering control was still prevalent. When ball joints were done you had the alignment redone so two things were done simotaneously caster adjusted etc. Also the resistance to return to center was reduced when the steering stabilizer was removed.

You are right typically when i do things one part at a time and will return to that part if somethings new develops that was not there before. Those people who do run into this problem should know that these joints function like typical functioning joints. The odd part was when i used to do front end work typically whenever i used to have tight ball joints or a problem ball joint you could put it up on the rack jack it up and flop the knuckles if there was a tight ball joint typically there would be resistance of some sort yet with this there was zero resistance so the loose knuckles and the fact that we measured knuckle caster relative to the outer knuckle and saw no irregularities made this a frustrating experience for sure. Hopefully i have learned something in this....Dont wait for everything in the front end to be wiped out when you do the repair, it makes chasing any issues far more conveluded.

 

You are so right that hind sight is 20-20, and I was very wrong to jump in at the end and point out how I would have done things...

I do my own work, so I don't do alignments. I would have changed the joints and driven it immediately to the alignment rack and noticed the difference. You had it done at a shop and many things were changed at once, so you definitely had more to consider than I would have. You're right I'm wrong #1.

I also knew that the Moogs have a cup design that causes binding when weight is applied, yet they turn freely when hanging there. You were way ahead of us on that one, one of the pioneers in figuring this whole mess out. You're right I'm wrong #2.

Sometimes changing a worn part can reveal other complications that had been masked, like replacing tie rods can show a worn steering rack, so all the ideas like aligning the rear axle which sound just ridiculous at first glance (because you didn't mess with the axle) may actually lead to an answer... Everyone is right, I'm wrong #3.

I'm glad you got things running smoothly, and I hope I can improve my chat group relations in the new year. Thanks for not beating me up even though I deserved it!