Try THIS one out...

[dmicucci]

Here's one to boggle your minds.

Tonight I was driving down the road in my Ranger (8" lift, drop pitman arm, etc., specs are in sig) and I drove over a railroad crossing. I instantly lost my alignment with no warning, and no previous signs of trouble at all. Almost like I bent a tie rod or something. Ripped the steering wheel right out of my hand and then had to fight to keep it on the road.

I pulled over grabbed a flashlight and looked underneath the front end. Everything looked fine including the alighment by the eyeball standard. I jacked up the front end and checked for loose lug nuts, wiggled the tires to check tie rod ends (which also looked fine), and even used a shovel as a prybar to check ball joints. After checking all I could think of and doing a lot of head scratching, I could find absoluletly nothing wrong.

I got in and stuck my head out the window to watch the tire and started to creep foreward. As I accelerated I could see the camber going way positive and the tire towing in profusely. Hit the brake and as I slow down it goes back to normal.

Now completely confused, I decide to just try to get it home and deal with it there instead of on the side of the road. I take off, tires squealing and all.

By the time I'm almost home everything seems to be back to normal and I'm doing 60. Get into town and you would never even know anything was wrong. The steering wheel was even straight again, no matter how many potholes that I hit.

Now I'm completely confused and a little worried. I hate those intermittent problems that always seem to show up when I'm 100 miles from home all alone in the middle of the night.

Sorry for the super-long story, but anyone have any ideas? I'm dumbfounded.

 

[Gabe8810]

im just giving a guess but i worked at midas for a couple of years and i do allignments but sounds to me like the adjustments from ether side of your tie rods might be a little loose check those somethimes they jump some threads to prevent you from bending or breaking your drag link or center link. hope any of this helps check the pitman arm too make sure its super tight or the pitman arm is not jumping any teeth. good luck finding the problem

 

[ZSK]

I sounds like your pitman arm isn't matched correctly. What do your steering angles look like?

 

[dmicucci]

I just had the truck on the alignment rack today. The radius arm bushings were shot again so I replaced those, then set the toe. Everything seems fine now. I even had another tech look at it and he couldn't find anything wrong either.

The wierd part is that the truck has been set up this way for over a year now and has never had a problem before. So I find it hard to believe that all of a sudden the pitman arm is mismatched and could cause a problem.

Anyway she's straight as an arrow now and has 350 miles on it since this little occurence without another problem, so I guess its just one of those things that you never figure out.

 

[Totalled]

You have the stock inverted Y steering with a drop pitman. You hit the rail road crossing, it unloaded your front suspension, causing it to droop, and toe in. It then continued to toe in from the TTB jacking effect. Then after the suspension settles back down to ride height, the alignment is back to "normal."

 

[dmicucci]

You have the stock inverted Y steering with a drop pitman. You hit the rail road crossing, it unloaded your front suspension, causing it to droop, and toe in. It then continued to toe in from the TTB jacking effect. Then after the suspension settles back down to ride height, the alignment is back to "normal."

Then explain why this toe in effect lasted for several miles after the suspension went back to "normal". But only at speed (5-7mph and up). The steering on TTB trucks is not foreign to me by any means, but this just confused the hell out of me.

And it wasn't only on the bumps, I watched the tire toe in just like the suspension was drooping as I sped up in a perfectly flat parking lot that had actually just been paved two days prior. Its not like I was on the throttle like white on rice because I was not even on the gas. It was just accelerating because I wasn't on the brake.

Anyway, like I said I have replaced a couple of bad bushings and given the truck a complete alignment, and the problem hasn't recurred since. And I've put on close to 500 miles since this happened. So seems to me like whatever it is it fixed itself.

I really do appreciate all the help and opinions received here, but I think this is one of those things that I will simple never understand.