'06 Chevy truck questions

[K85 Octane]

Few things I'm trying to address before using this truck for towing duties.

Truck is currently at a dealership and I just know they aren't going to help me. They already want to charge me $3600 to replace front end stuff.

1) Sloppy ass steering. Feels like the steering wheel is disconnected, even while parked engine off. Has anyone tried to replace the steering intermediate shafts (2), or tilt ball, or even tightened up the steering box for one of these trucks? It's not a TRE, etc, it's looser than that.

2) Last time I used this truck to tow the blazer it was getting hot. Ran up to 230-240 coolant and about the same for the trans. This truck never cared about any hill or any load, but now it's all sensitive. I don't believe the coolant has ever been changed, so that will happen, but I've also seen where people are finding crud between the radiators? Mine looks fine, but of course that's only the outside. Is this as big a problem as the interwebs say it is?

 

[skunked]

I just went through the whole front end on my 02 and replaced everything but the box itself. The idler arm and pitman arms are notoriously known to get sloppy along with the inner & outer tie rods and upper/lower BJ's

 

[diesel4me]

The steering shafts at the colum to box were also noted for being crapola,some were under a factory recall (maybe a "silent" one,that they only replaced when someone complained )..

 

[skunked]

The steering shafts at the colum to box were also noted for being crapola,some were under a factory recall (maybe a "silent" one,that they only replaced when someone complained )..

that was just a noise as far as I remember, my tahoe and my silverado both did it.

 

[miniwally]

In my 05' D-max

I've never addressed the clunky steering shaft, I have done the cognito braces on the idler and pitman arm, Cognito upper A-arms, heavy duty tierod ends etc. At one point in time I thought mine was ok, then as the roads got bad up here and I was driving on ice and snow that transitioned to clear pavement the truck would try to change lanes everytime I went from ice to pavement. Changed everything in the front end and the issue was gone.

Don't discount how bad the idler and pitman arm can be, if those are bad the center link just lifts up and down.

I would clean the Radiator, intercooler and AC condensor. I've done once and just removed the upper shroud and cover, then sprayed boat loads of various cleaning chemicals into each thing and back flushed with water from the garden hose. When I started I barely had water coming out of the from of the intercooler, when I stopped I had a decent stream flowing out of that and hitting the AC condensor. However my truck is getting more and more sensitive these last few years, the cleaning helped but didn't solve everything. But I tow with 80+ HP added at 10,000' while pretending I'm a race car driver.

 

[jeff in co]

Yea, mine makes some noise but not loose steering. I might do that steering column bushing sometime. I DID do it on the Blazer and it really helped, though!

I've done a lot of the items mentioned above: Idler Arm, Pitman arm, ball joints, wheel bearings, and both of my sway bar links were broken?!? I also put in a new red head steering box. It's all tight now. 2004 3/4 ton Yukon XL.

 

[jeff in co]

Also, the GM Idler arm was way beefier than the Moog!

 

[Blue85]

Is this a 1/2-ton or 3/4? Electric fans or mechanical? A new fan clutch solved my hot 6.0 problem: https://ck5.com/forums/threads/how-warm-should-my-engine-get.330868/

I've had to replace the idler arm and pitman arm on both of mine. It takes about 10 seconds to climb underneath and push/pull on the intermediate link to see if one/both is bad. Checking ball joints and TREs doesn't take long either. I think changing idler, pitman and both TREs all at once would be the easiest way. Taking the idler bracket off the frame is easy and the TREs usually pop off without much effort, as well. So only one joint has to be done in the truck, then everything else is on the bench.

 

[K85 Octane]

3500 4x4 Dmax
Front end components have been changed a couple times on this truck. I couldn't tell you when it was done last and what. I know ball joints, box, pump, lines, idler, etc etc were all changed at one point. Truck has 35s on it, so I know all that stuff wears out faster. The steering wheel slop feels like the wheel isn't connected to anything. Like those plastic toys your 4 year old sits on and steers while you pull them around. The wheel doesn't do anything and has no resistance lol

 

[skunked]

There's a lot of complaints about certain brand parts only lasting 10K miles before they're sloppy again.

 

[Truckman4life]

Could be the gear itself. Not sure if they are adjustable like my Ford was. I haven't looked at mine and I'm not home. Most likely dirty radiator. Overlooked a lot. If it is getting hot with fan on and going down the road my money is on a dirty rad. Mine gets a little warm towing up hills but I just drop to 5th and it gets better. I need to pull fan and shroud and wash it. I just did my wife's 08 Yukon xl Denali. It would get hot towing up hills then I'd pull over and it would cool down with the electric fans running. I pulled the fans off and washed it from the backside. Way dirty.

 

[yellowK20]

#IFSdelete

 

[ZooMad75]

Idler and pitman arms are very common with high mileage rigs. We can see almost an inch of toe change when they are really bad. With the truck lifted on a rack pulling in and out on the front and back of the tires you'll see the tires toe in and out and all it's doing is wobbling at the idler/pitman arms and the center link flopping up and down. That will give a disconnected feeling for sure.

The steering box is NOT adjustable. No sector adjustment to tighten it up. If it's loose you need another one.

Ball joints could be loose too, or combined with outer tie rod ends you could have a large stack up of tolernaces you are working against.