My truck feels like a death trap on the highways around here and I can't seem to figure out why. My idler arm was shot when I got the the truck so I replaced it, and every thing else is solid all the tierods are good and nothing is loose. I don't know what could be the problem. Do these older trucks have bump steer issues when they are lowerd maybe?

 

wut do u mean? lkike the wheels turn with the road/ when u hit a dip/bump?

 

yep thats bump steer

 

Do you have a manual box?

if so have you adjusted the lash in the box?

it is easy to do just take a large flat head srewdriver and a 12mm wrench.
There is a bolt on the top of the box that looks like it has a stud through it.

Take the screwdriver and insert into slot in the end of that stud and loosen the 12mm bolt. you can now thread the stud in until almost all of the slop is removed make sure to leave a little bit of play or else the it will not return to center.

Worked like a hot dam on my truck. made all of the difference, I also had a bad idler arm and it is what causeed all of the play in the box now my truck handles like new.

 

yeah i got that all adjusted nicely. the idler arm was bad on mine to. Maybe the guy before me messed with the bars that support the lower a arm and got the caster all out of wack.

 

I would definatly check your caster

 

Take a good look at the upper control arm bushings in the front. Also, the wheel bearings may need to be tightened. Just lift up the front end and feel for side-to-side play in the front wheels. When the upper bushings go the trucks will wander like crazy. Just had to do my front end myself. The lower bushings, although I replaced them, were actually just fine. Just those uppers. And man alive were they bad!

 

Would this article be of any use?

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=47

 

Nice article!

While that could certainly be a contributor I've heard from others I know who have old Toyota 2wd's that the upper bushings are a hot wear item on some of them. I don't know what years specifically, but your description of your problem sounds almost just like mine. It wandered like mad, so I adjusted lash and the front wheelbearings which were loose and that helped a ton, but it still kind of bounced around here and there. All of the other suspension components seemed fine also, but I found the left front upper A-arm bushing wiggly-wagglin all over the place and decided that I might as well just do the whole package. I don't know what year you have and hence what style of bushing you have, but the 76 has the rod and threaded caps rather than a press fit style. If the truck hasn't had a front end job it's certainly a very likely contributor.