1973 Bronco
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Loose Steering

I have been driving the Bronco for a while and have tolerated a bit of sloppy steering. At first I thought it might be bump steer, but since my radius arm and steering are operating at the same angle I quickly ruled that out. I took a more scientific approach to determining the source of sloppy steering. I had my 5 year old daughter sit in the driver seat and slowly turn the wheel back and forth. Immediately I saw the problem. The existing pitman arm was walking back and forth on the steering box output shaft. I was actually able to move the pitman arm up and down by hand on the output shaft. If you are familiar with steering assemblies this would be considered incorrect. Since the steering box and pitman arm are both new I decided to get some measurements to determine if the pitman arm was the correct size.
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The first new tool I grabbed was a tie rod end puller. This made quick work of removing the steering arm from the pitman arm. For $14 this was a bargain compared to taking it to a shop.
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Getting the pitman arm off was another story. As I said before the arm itself is loose however the bolt holding the arm on is under about 250 lb-feet of torque. In order to get this bolt off I had to get a 33mm socket and a 3 foot breaker bar. Just putting my body weight into the bar I was able to remove the nut and washer. I took some measurements for two reasons: (1) to determine whether the shaft has a proper taper and (2) get the measurements to determine if I have the correct pitman arm. My measurements were a top measurement of 1.215", middle measurement of 1.204", and a bottom measurement of 1.188". This meant that at least my output shaft has a taper and therefore I am not needing to get a new box. The lift kit on my Bronco came from Tom's Bronco Parts, however, I am not sure where the pitman arm came from. I had the folks over at Tom's compare my measurements with one of their boxes and trial fit one of their fully indexed drop pitman arms. Sure enough their arm fits like it should, I have the wrong arm. For about $60 and 3 days later I had a new arm on my Bronco and almost all of my steering sloppiness has been eliminated. 
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Here is what the new indexed pitman arm looks like installed. The splines are visible at the top of the output shaft because the arm is fitting as it should against the taper built into the output shaft. The driving experience is dramatically better. I have just a little bit of slack left but not enough for me to bother with it for now. Most people probably wouldn't even care but it will bother me until all the slack is finally gone.
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