tie rod or steering box bind?

On a road trip last week as i was exiting an off ramp felt a large obstacle or something when making left turn onto the service road. Stopped to fuel up figuring i had ice or something built up making it hard to turn past one specific point (thats what it felt like) and found my truck was totally clean of ice or any other obstacles on the front end.



Now every time i make more than an easy left turn i have to muscle the wheel past a real hard spot in the steering... its there when exiting the turn (bringing the steering wheel straight) but not as pronounced. I only have 16k on the truck and she runs just fine motoring down the road... no slop... just when i turn there is a bind about 1 turn before lockout. I think its there turning right but not nearly as pronounced as when i turn left.



Could this be the tie rods or is this symptomatic to the steering gear box problems many have had?



wheatman

 

I had a couple of boxes go on my 94 and one on my 03. I got the one on the 03 under warranty. I forget the exact problem but as I remember it was something like yours.

 

My money is on a bent steering stabilizer!

 

bent steering stabilizer

i haven't had time to really go through all the linkages etc... i don't remember hitting anything before this started... . just kinda came from no where. but will check out the stabilizer etc tomorrow.