I have noticed lately that my truck seems to be wondering alot. There are roads where it tracks straight and true and there are roads that I seem to always make adjustments to keep going straight. So last night I jacked the front end up and started shaking stuff. The passanger side is tight and the way it should be but the drivers side tire wiggles left and right ONLY. (wheel bearing is good) It moves a good 1/4" at the edge of my tire (20's). When I got under neath I checked the tie rod and its old but has no slack. However where the tie rod goes into the steering rack (the side with the box) it has some play in it. I haven't done much front end work before and just need some help figureing out what exactly may need to be replaced. Any ideas???.....

 

sounds like your inner tie rod is shot. there was a thread a while back where a guy replaced inners and outters and took a bunch of pictures. IMO i would go ahead and replace all of them and be done with it

 

A good alignment should help with tracking as well - of course if anything is loose in the suspension it won't align correctly anyways. I just had an old school alignment (no fancy computers) done a few days ago and I instantly noticed better feel in the steering wheel and better tracking. The other shop with the computer equipment failed to see that the factory plastic plates for the camber adjustment were still in there. Camber wasn't touched, and I had too much toe in - no wonder the outside edges of my tires were feathering.

Good luck.