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So my my steering is loose, but the wheels only turn about im assuming half way based on the stoppers. when I go from right to left there is almost half a turn play, but from left to right its arround an inch. I dont understand this steering box stuff. My car is lowered pretty much to the max. The wheels aren't hitting.
Have you messed around with the adjusters perhaps? I could see a situation where the sector shaft's teeth are so dropped out of the ball nut's teeth that the slop could be really huge. You can pop the pitman arm off of the linkage with a simple ball joint separator, then move the linkage through its range and look for binding.
For the box, when you adjust the "sector plug" (the big threaded thing with the two holes) clockwise, it drops the shaft and teeth further out of mesh with the ball, creating more and more play. In this photo below, I am looking at how much play there is by pushing the shaft up and down. There's no spec for this but it gave me a good sense of how far away I was from pulling the teeth together (which would do by rotating the sector plug CCW and pulling the teeth together). If the should of your shaft looks significantly lower than mine as it protrudes from the seal, then that's a clue that you can adjust out more play. You don't need the dial gauge, you'll feel it if it's very loose.
Here's a couple of good threads on adjusting the box:
Have you messed around with the adjusters perhaps? I could see a situation where the sector shaft's teeth are so dropped out of the ball nut's teeth that the slop could be really huge. You can pop the pitman arm off of the linkage with a simple ball joint separator, then move the linkage through its range and look for binding.
For the box, when you adjust the "sector plug" (the big threaded thing with the two holes) clockwise, it drops the shaft and teeth further out of mesh with the ball, creating more and more play. In this photo below, I am looking at how much play there is by pushing the shaft up and down. There's no spec for this but it gave me a good sense of how far away I was from pulling the teeth together (which would do by rotating the sector plug CCW and pulling the teeth together). If the should of your shaft looks significantly lower than mine as it protrudes from the seal, then that's a clue that you can adjust out more play. You don't need the dial gauge, you'll feel it if it's very loose.
Here's a couple of good threads on adjusting the box:
Ok, I tried adjusting it to see if it helped, but I turned it clockwise so that probably made it worse. Its about as far clockwise as it can get. I had the steering shaft out of the box but I didn't move the lock nut on it, i dont know if that effects it.
Last edited by Badfighterpilot; May 29, 2026 at 02:36 PM.
It sounds like you clocked the shaft into the "car" incorrectly when you put it back together. Usually, the gears are a slightly different height at the ends vs. in the middle. So you would never get it adjusted right, as it would be tight one way and extremely loose the other, and you also would have limited travel.
