I'm a poster on here to much but I have a lot going on. I guess when you drive it as much as I do and as much as I do over our country roads there will be problems.. Tuesday I nailed the pothole from hell taking the truck in for carb work. Told the shop owner about the incident. He called the next day and said toe was way out of wack. I went over and the tie rod appeared straight? It had to have just happened as it's been driving perfect and the tire wear was also perfect. I have the Roadster Supply super deep drop ductile steel steering arms. First thought was bent a steering arm? Then thought maybe the ductile steel cast axle, finally original Henry forged spindles with the arms removed. Shop guy did immediately notice the right spindle bushings were worn out after just replacing them about 2K miles ago. I love asking questions on here because everyone has a different opinion which confuses things even more. Let it rip guys.
Man Kansas city has similar pot holes lol. I’d put the truck on stands and let the steering box go to center and see if it’s biased to one side then check and compare components to see which is not like the other. Maybe it jared a jam nut lose and something losened up a bit?
Watch out for potholes. I would look for something to be bent. It doesn't take much to throw things out of alignment.
I did have a set of kingpin bushings that were worn after about 8,000 miles. Not really worn thin, but had some spots that must not have been greased properly and they kinda smeared the brass.
Hard to tell, those super deep drop steering arms were a disaster waiting to happen. Doing a forged axle, Ford 37-40 spindles, Cornhusker hairpins, a combination I've done 100's of with no problem. Had the parts, no big deal. Problem solved. This truck was a road warrior for many years going all over the country. I seem to have a knack for screwing things up.
I'm glad your fixed. So far, I've not had to use bolt on steering arms. If I had to use them I would use C.E. with bolts through the arm and spindle.
These dropped steering arms were thru bolt design. The problem was they hung so low to get the tie rod & drag link under the 32 bones with my 500/16 tires the bottom of the tie rod ends were only about 3 inches off the ground. Just not enough ground clearance on our roads. I went to them because the CE arms that were on the truck put the tie rod and drag link above the 32 bones and they were hitting on the bottom of the frame. I suspect that was not the case when the truck was built but the front spring has probably settled? The front suspension was solidly engineered and the truck drives great, it was just annoying and the tie rod was stating to wear a spot on the bottom of the rail. Sometime what seems like a step forward actually takes you backwards. The other problem is the rapid wear of the right king pin bushings?
I don't get the kingpin bushing wear; unless it was done while reaming to size. I have the bushings installed and Honed to get minimum clearance required. The local automotive machine shop does it.
I use a machine shop that over the last 40+ years has done countless kingpin bushings for me, no problems. I am changing to nice pair of rebushed 37-40 spindles. The toe in thing appeases to be a fastener failure.
Back in the early 1970's I purchased the correct, self aligning reamer for early Ford's, so I became "the reamer guy" and did probably two dozen bushing/kingpin sets over the years. I have been reading about honing the bushings and decided to rebuild the front end in my '46 Woodie over the winter and had the bushings honed from a local machine shop. I always thought that my reamer did a great job but when I picked up my spindles and kingpin's I could not believe the fantastic fit. They were done on a Sunnen (I believe that is the correct spelling) honing machine and I am sold on honing over reaming.
The steering wheel was just being stored there to keep it out of the way. I’ve been using this Sunnen hone since the 70s, when it was given to me after the original town auto mechanic retired. He bought it new in 1928 for those new fangled Ford A models with the reverse Elliott axle arrangement. He used it exclusively for spindles. It still works like new, giving a nice smooth finish and holding the tolerances to ridiculously tight tolerances. I’m running low of replacement stones, fortunately Sunnen hasn’t changed the tooling.
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