Steering wheel messed up

As the title says, my steering wheel is messed up. To drive straight I have to turn the wheel maybe a 1/4 turn clockwise. Now, this has happened once or twice before, and within a couple days it usually returned to normal so I didn't worry about it too much. This most recent time it's been like that for a few weeks and is starting to annoy me. Is there a easy way to reset it?

 

An allignment....

Check all your steering linkages under the hood. Like for instance....follow the steering column where it comes out of the firewall and down towards the rack, etc. Check to make sure everything is tight and hasnt' moved (so to speak). If everything else is good, perhaps something in the column is loose. If it were me.... I'd be rooting in the service manuals myself.

Are you still under warrantee? If yes, just take it to the dealer.

 

I might be just within my 60k powertrain warranty, but I have a feeling that just ran out.

The weird part is this happened once or twice before and the next morning when I started the truck it was back to normal.

Oh, and it happened one time when I took the truck into the dealer for the front diff replacement a while back. I noticed it after they inspected the truck and determined I needed the new diff. Took them maybe 5 minutes to correct it when I mentioned that, but I have no idea what they did...

Guess I'll be crawling under to look. As for service manuals, all I have is the PDF of the FSM which reads like chinese to me most of the time. What I wouldn't give for a Haynes manual for these trucks!

 

Oh, and I don't notice the truck pulling or anything like that which i thought was a sign you need an alignment. The steering wheel is just off a bit.

 

Thanks. I'll check that too since my TPMS is broken.

 

An allignment also deals with steering wheel position. The wheels need to be 'centered' along with the steering wheel.

Tire pressure won't cause your steering wheel to be 'off- center'

 

I just find it odd that it's come and gone in the past with no explanation I can think of. So I thought maybe there was something simple to try or to adjust if anyone else has had the problem.

 

Oh, and Chris, I see you're viewing this thread so lets hear what you're thinking!

 

I thought maybe something got knocked too since I drive over a curb to a loading area at work, and sometimes hit the curb pulling into my driveway. But it's always returned to normal within a day or two in the past. Before I could really think about doing anything. lol This time, it's staying that way.

Almost like my lawn mower when the steering column skips gears on the rack. Just take off a bolt, pull wheel off, rotate it over a couple teeth, put it back on.

But these trucks have power steering and I was wondering if that could be off? Like maybe it's more fly-by-wire than straight shaft from wheel to steering arm, and it needs to be re-calibrated.... Is that possible?

 

Well, that's helpful....

 

Can you explain what/where those things are? lol I'm not that familiar with them.

 

sweet! Thanks chris! Yeah, I can check those. Good pics!

Say, is it possible to loosen the yokes and rotate the steering wheel back to where it belongs? I haven't read the TTORA thread yet... just skimming here while I'm at work. lol