Why Does My Steering Pop?

['03chevyHD]

my HD's steering pops when i cut my wheels to back out of a space or back into one! does anyone know why it does this? its not the tires rubbing either, its more of a metallic POP

[SkidooSteve12]

Mine does it too every morning backing out of the garage. I think it has something to do with the intermediate steering shaft. Even though I just had my dealer "fix" the clunking about a month ago when I bought the truck.

 

If anyone has a fix, let us know.

[Haulin' 8.1]

Here's a couple of likely things to check.

 

My truck started popping in the steering at about 90K. I got it up on a lift and found that both the pitman (connected to the gear box) and idler (opposite the pitman on the frame) arms were worn out in the pivot. With the wieght off the tires you could grab them at 9 and 3 and wiggle them back and forth a bit. I installed brand new NAPA parts and a Cognito bracing kit from Kennedy Diesel to repair it and shore it up.

 

Then I took it to the alignment shop and had them reset it. But after about a week it started popping again when pulling into or backing out of parking spaces. Anytime it was moving with the wheels turned and I got on and off the brakes it popped. I had my son duplicate the motion in the truck while I stood along side and watched the suspension on the popping side. I observed the pass side upper control arm's rear bolt which also is an alinment adjustment point was loose. Everytime you loaded and unloaded the wheels with brakes and movement it would go from one end of the adustment to the other and pop. It looked pretty scarey considering we had been traveling freeways like that. I used two wrenches to put it in the center at home and drove it back to the alignment shop the next Monday and complained about them not torqueing it down so they redid it.

 

Since then it's been quite.

 

Vernon