Worn king pins=steering wander?

There is something to that mtoo post also but I do not remember. The power steering sector can override the forces of weight and king pin inclination that make the truck return to center or straight. May sound complicated or BS but just like a bike.

 

Get the tire off the ground enough to get a long bar under it, push in on top of tire as you pry the bottom, if it has any slop in the king pins you will feel it. And as BoxCarr said look at the spring shackles especially for side to side movement. You can do a poor boy alignment on the front end by scratching a mark in the tire with a nail sticking out of a 2X4 at an angle, lay board on the ground with the nail against the tire and rotate it. Do both sides then measure front and back side of steer tires.

 

For real , I've driven a dozen different trucks & only that one KW gave me a problem. Every time I'ld have to come to a short stop my trailer would swing out, didn't matter if it was dry or wet, once almost jack-knifed in the snow. Had a couple of shops look at it, they would clean out the grease from the 5th wheel but it never got better. I finally felt my safety was at risk & turned it in just 2 months later.

Yeah I couldn't figure that out but figured I'ld send my 2 cents worth anyway. When you finally find the problem please let us know! I'm curious now.

 

When my kingpins were worn out I never had this issue. However, when they were replaced my truck would wander. The steering wheel would not self correct to center when I let go of it. Pretty much rebuilt the entire front end everything that could be rebuilt or replaced was. And the problem never really went away. Two professional heavy duty frame/alignment shops could not find out the cause. Drove me mad but I got tired of tossing money at it. I still believe it's an issue with the new kingpins.

 

You would be amazed how much tightening the steering box, adjusting toe in, and adjusting the 5th wheel will make in handling issues like this.

 

I remember reading about your problem last year. You still didn't get it to self correct so you are just living with it?

I had a 80s Cheverolet conversion van that did this same thing after i rebuilt the front end. Grove me crazy.

I believe cranking down on the steering box adjustment screw is causing the problem here..

 

the wheel not centering is normally a caster angle problem.

 

Chances are they mushroomed the new bushings installing them slightly which caused a very tight fit between the bushing and king pin which will cause this issue.