When steering wheel is locked, how much should it move?

In short: my steering wheel turns quite a bit when locked if i grab the tire at 9 and 3 and wiggle with the front end off the ground. The tires can move about 10 degrees. Is this normal? There's zero movement at top and bottom, so I can rule wheel bearing out.

It seems like they move pretty in sync, but it makes it hard to diagnose tie rods and stuff.

2002 2.7 reg cab 4wd
whiteline lca bushings
poly rack bushings
poly sway bushings
Bilstien 5100's w OME on lowest perch

edit:also added toyota ball joints, toyota outer tie rods, and 555 inners.

 

I had smoked front wheel bearings without any movement (that's a whole long story, but serval shops looked at it, and I ended up chasing other items because of their incorrect diagnosis).

If you have that much movement, you need to figure out what's moving. Comparing how much is acceptable to how much the wheel moves on lock might not be the best approach. Perhaps pry bars or like would be a better solution to test tie rods and bushings.

 

As Andy said, you need to see what is moving. It shouldn't matter if the steering wheel is locked or not. There are a ton of things that create slop between the wheel and steering wheel. If you feel slop and the tie rods aren't moving, that's likely your bearings.

That said, if the tie rods, ball joints and anything else that moves hasn't been replaced yet on your 20 year old truck, they probably should be.

I didn't even thing my tie rods or ball joints were necessarily worn out, but after I replaced them (along with poly bushings) it made a VAST improvement in the tightness of the steering.

 

I'm amazed at how well my 20+ year old truck steers with the poly bushings. My wife has a newer car with electric steering and I think my Tacoma steers just as good. Straight as an arrow, no wander at all.

I had a 1985 Toyota 4x4 truck and that thing was horrible, it tramlined like crazy on the slightest offset in pavement.

OP needs to get that fixed ASAP, losing steering control is about the worst thing that can happen to you and if its due to poor maintenance fault is your own.

 

Yeah, I did poly bushings all around on my 2004, including steering rack, and upper and lower control arms (I removed my swaybar). I was thinking I might have to do the tack weld mod but after replacing all the bushings with poly it was a night and day difference.

Your steering is more precise, but the ride tends to be a bit "rougher" because the poly transmits more vibes.

 

Thanks for the replies everyone, I appreciate your time.
If i figure anything out, i'll update here.