Play in the pitman arm

[RobinHood]

l just got my old pitman arm off and am installing the new one.

However, there is a little play back and forth in the pitman arm. Not alot, just a little. Does this mean it is not tight enough, or is some play expected?

 

[4x4junkie]

Play in the pitman arm splines is BAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!

Tighten that thing to 200-250ft-lbs. Did you make sure there was no paint inside the hole on the arm?

 

[RobinHood]

Paint on the inside where the grooves are? l did not remove that paint...

After l installed the draglink everything tightened up and the steering works well... the play in the arm was happening when nothing else was installed, just the arm on the box with the nut. As l recall, prior to getting it off, it was somewhat loose as well.

We had a hard time getting the arm to sit back on the shaft. We had the breaker bar with a cheater to turn the nut... it was tough. But we backed it off once and checked things out to make sure we werent missing the grooves or screwing something up ... and there was not paint chipping away (from the grooves on the arm) and the shaft was fine...

But like l said after we hooked up the drag link everything seem good from what we could tell.

Any thoughts?

 

[04 EDGE]

slop in the steering gear?

its sorta common on fords

 

[RobinHood]

Like l said, the "slop" was just when the arm was installed on the shaft. Once l hooked everything up, it tightened up and felt normal.

 

[4x4junkie]

You may want to pull it off and clean the paint out of there if you didn't do that.
Although it sounds like you may just have a bit of slop in the box (loose meshload, or maybe it was just turned all the way to one side), the paint in there may allow the arm to work loose on the sector shaft after a bit, which will almost immediately ruin the splines if that happens.

 

[RobinHood]

You may want to pull it off and clean the paint out of there if you didn't do that.
Although it sounds like you may just have a bit of slop in the box (loose meshload, or maybe it was just turned all the way to one side), the paint in there may allow the arm to work loose on the sector shaft after a bit, which will almost immediately ruin the splines if that happens.

Good to know... is this a common thing?
When you say remove the paint, l assume it can be done with a wire brush?

 

[4x4junkie]

A wire brush alone isn't likely to do much (especially down in the very bottom of the splines), use a thick gel-type paint stripper, this will lift up the paint making it easier to remove completely.
Make sure the hole for the steering linkage is clean also.