First off let me say that I really appreciate forums like this and I am thankful for everyone's help.

Now to my issue. My 97 F150 4.6 is having some steering wheel and steering issues. I suspect something in the ignition too since that just started acting up too. So I was driving, making a turn and all of a sudden the wheel was hard to turn, like the power steering went out. By the time I got home, there were a few clicks in the steering wheel and the steering seemed back to normal. Here is when I noticed a few things gone wrong... Steering wheel now has play (just the wheel, not the column, jiggles up and down), the shift lever indicator is off by one space... its in park when it says R, and its is very hard to turn the key to the off position. When I do force it into the off position the steering wheel gets hard to turn, that same feeling I had when driving it. Before I take it somewhere to have it taken apart... I was wondering if you guys have any insight? I really appreciate it.

 

Pull off the column cover and adjust the PRNDL then see if it still happens. seems like a ignition problem though.

 

Hello Lexing1,,I just had same problem,I went to junk yard and got a replacement steering colum, make sure you get one with the keys still in ingnition, that way you dont have to change the ingnition. its not a hard job at all ,this way you can also change any bulbs that went out in you dash cluster while you got it all apart,Also if you have a ground wire that is attached to the steering colum make sure you reconnect it. I called everywhere for a rebuild and it was 350 ouch! So 50 bucks later I was back on the road. The bearing go,s bad right where the tilt bends and that is the racket you hear and tough steering. Good luck!

 

Alright. I got it back from the shop and here is the update. First off, the ignition switch was malfunctioning. Thats where most of my problems were coming from, the steering wheel was trying to lock while I was driving. And while forcing the wheel to turn I damaged the first bearing so now my steering wheel jiggles. The shift indicator cable was also wearing out over time. So while everything seemed related, my only real problem was the ignition switch. I am going to leave the damaged bearing as it is for now. Since the truck is 14 years old, and its drivable again for $106.00, I consider myself lucky this time.

Thanks guys.

 

Hey forbuoy, just how tough is it to change out a steering column? Do you have any tips or a step by step, possibly?