Hi, im robert and i could really use some help.
my steering wheel is so loose, that when im on the freeway, if i drive over a straight line, or crack or maybe its a crease from the asphalt, it steers my truck (4x4). even if i have the wheel steering straight, it throws the truck from side to side.
I am trying to save money from the mechanics, but i think i may have no choice. they tell me my " idol control arm" is worn and my "pivot arm" also needs replacing. i cant find these parts arounde here, does anyone any advice? i really dont want to get ripped off.
any tips or tricks, would really appreciate it. thank you guys

 

yup, idler arm and pitman arm. that is what you are looking for.
go with moog if you are gonna keep it for awhile.

idler arm is easy. its on passenger side of frame connected to the centerlink.
pitman arm is connected to center link on driverside at the steering box.

if you replace only idler arm you may get by for awhile but the pitman arm (if bad) will chew it up and you are back at square one.

you will need a puller and a fork (to separate joints)
you need to take out the steering box to remove the pitman arm.
the steering box is held on the frame by 3 bolts. it will be a pain in the a$$ job. you will also need a puller /torch to heat up and pop off the pitman arm.
i recommend tubing wrench on power steering lines..so you cant round them off.
that is the method i used.

here are some places that might help

how to remove pitman arm blazer - Google Search

 

I'm doing this job myself at the moment, so if you decide to go for it on your own I can help out. It does more or less require some weird size sockets and a good impact wrench to keep it from being a huge headache in addition to the tools mentioned by warthogdriver.

This is indeed a bit of a headache job. On a related note, now that I have this ugly steering box out of the beast, I'm wondering if I'd be best advised to put in a rebuilt one now that I've done all the dirty work. It does have 250k+ on it - I don't think it's been leaking however, though it seemed like it might be seeping just a little. And not that I want to spend money just for the fun of it. Any opinion on whether this falls into the category of "it'll last another 200k miles, forget it" or "if you leave it alone with any luck you'll have a bad leak in 6 months"?

 

if it aint broke dont fix it.
save your money for a rainy day.
i have 230k on mine..no issues.
up to you though

 

Thanks for the input - generally I like to err on the side of take-care-of-it-while-you're-at-it, but my wallet tends to agree with your assessment...

 

Ok question for all of you guys will replacing those two parts take a shimmy out going doen the road i just finished replacing upper and lower ball joints? Just wondering

 

Well shimmy can be a lot of things, but in of itself worn pitman/idler didn't result in any shimmy in my case. More just steering looseness / wandering feelings. But it stands to reason that if you have some other source of vibration like a wheel out of balance or a bent rim that worn steering components could make it worse.

I'm not an expert though so perhaps someone else will have some input.

 

front shocks being shot can make your front dance for you.