Late 70’s Ford Integral Powering Steering Gear

[ChevyToughRebel]

First post since 2014!

Now that my truck is FINALLY on the road and driving, I’ve quickly found that there is way too much play in the steering to the point where I don’t feel safe driving over 45mph as I’m constantly chasing the steering. I believe I’ve narrowed the issue down to the power steering gear as all the components leading up to the input shaft of the steering gear are new and tight. I bought it off of someone many years back and it looked like it had been rebuilt as it was spotless and had been painted, however I don’t actually know the TRUE history of the thing. If you google “lares 11148”, that’s the power steering gear I’ve installed in my 1972 F250 highboy. I believe it’s the ‘Ford integral power steering’ gear with the four bolt mounting flange. Truck is sitting on factory size tires and I am using the OEM steering wheel.

Engine off or running, you could easily rotate the steering wheel from side to side with a finger and get about 1.5” - 2” of free play. I tried to do a lot of research online about adjustments and got mixed results. I went ahead and broke the lock nut free and turned the slotted stud CW a small increment while running the engine, front end up off the ground and rotating steering from lock to lock and recentering, checking free play and repeating the process again. I did this multiple times and decided to stop because although it did seem to help a little bit as there is now about 1” of free play at the steering wheel, I am really concerned that nothing is binding up yet and the slotted screw can still be turned CW but I’ve already gotten roughly 2 full revolutions out of it and the sector shaft has moved roughly 1/4” out of the steering gear from where it was initially. This does NOT seem normal to me.

I am not sure what to do.

Should I keep adjusting CW to see if the free play eventually goes away and the steering binds up, then back off and recheck? I was almost wondering if someone had rebuilt it but didn’t bother adjusting it as they had intended to do that when they got it reinstalled on vehicle, but they never got that far and now I’m adjusting it on my rig. What’s the worst that can happen if I keep adjusting CW, it just binds up right? Any ideas?

[ChevyToughRebel]

Of course after I posted this last night, I finally found a rebuild video online of my exact steering box and have a much better understanding of what's going on inside with this adjustment screw. I am just going to keep adjusting until the steering starts to bind up, then back off. If the free play just won't go away at all then I'll know I need to rebuild or replace the steering gear.

[ChevyToughRebel]

After attempting additional adjustment, I could hear and feel the steering getting tighter / binding while still having over an inch of steering wheel free play, so now I know for sure I’ve got a steering gear that needs rebuilt or replaced. I’ve never rebuilt a steering gear before so I don’t know where that free play is happening at or what internal components I’d have to replace. At this point I’m probably just going to shop around for a new or rebuilt unit and just swap out the whole assembly and be done with it.