ok, so when i'm sitting still turning lock to lock my steering feels off when at lock. like its going a touch to far. i'm not sure if this is wear or if its always been there and i never noticed. also while driving you can tell there is some play in the steering. so what parts do i need? also i think i need some new shocks. my ride seems to be getting ruff over the past few years.


also i need something to make this thing handle better. i was looking at the hotchkis sway bars. but i have stock sway bars front and rear, will the hotchkis bars actually improve the handling? and (with out lowering) is there anything else i can do to improve handling?

 

The hotchkis sways will lessen the body roll quite a bit.... a little stiffer shock will will help too

As for the steering, I haven't a clue

 

The hotchkis sways will lessen the body roll quite a bit.... a little stiffer shock will will help too

As for the steering, I haven't a clue

 

The steering stops are engineered into the steering knuckle and the lower control arm. If you have a stock, non-lowered suspension, then you cannot be steering 'too far'. You may be feeling something worn out in the front end. It's easy enough to check for worn out tie rod ends, inners seem to wear out pretty quickly on these models. To check the ball joints, you have to 'unload' the suspension. If you jack the truck up my the frame, the springs will pull any excessive slack out of the ball joints and make them look okay. So, jack it up one side at a time, with the jack under the lower control arm to check for bad ball joints.

Steering anything lock-to-lock with the vehicle stationary is not good practice. It puts alot of strain on the steering components, power steering, and (sometimes) can flat-spot a tire. Unless your tires are very narrow and do not grip the pavement very well.

 

I say get the Hotchkis front and rear kit... Might be able to get the kit for the SS which has the larger diameter front bar.

 

that was my point. i understand i can't steer "too far" but thats what it feels like. i called cognito and i think i know whats going on. and this is when doing like parking lot manuevers. i think the center link is moving up after it hits the stops. i think i may just do an over haul of the front end.

i was thinking about new bushings front and rear also.... any thoughts on this?

 

i just compared the bars for my tahoe and for the SS the fronts are the same size 1 7/16 and the rear is actually bigger for my tahoe 1 3/16. how does hollow compare to solid bars?

 

Very good possibility of an idler arm problem, by the way you describe it.

I wouldn't recommend completely overhauling the steering & suspension, unless you have a big list of worn out parts to begin with. If only one or two parts are worn out, just replace those. I don't know how many miles are on your vehicle, but I see stock parts lasting to almost 200K very often. My truck has 135K, and has only had the rf inner tie rod end replaced, and that was under warranty at 30K.

 

i just figure if i replace one part then another goes bad then i have to replace it and so on. if i replace it while i have the money then there are no worries. next year i will be putting a ton of miles on the truck. so i want it to be good to go.



anybody run the energy suspension bushings in the stock front and rear parts?

 

Don't run the Energy Suspension bushings unless you like to listen to them squeaking. Even the greasable ones are noisy.