1997 z71 steering gearbox

[BIGNN]

my 1997 chevy z71 has alot of play in the steering gearbox and i was wondering if there was a way to tighten it up if not how hard is it to replace

[bobcat5544]

You can adjust it, but any steering gear adjustment is made only as a correction and not as a periodic adjustment.

 

In plain english. You can adjust it once or twice, but you will soon overload or increase the wear on the worm thrust bearing and worm shaft to rack gear.

And when adjusting you can't just snug it up a little and you have to go with the specs for it.

 

Replaceing it is not hard. all you need is a pitman arm puller (rent it from auto zone) a wrench to disconnect the lines, and a few sockets to remove gear box bolts.