WHAT’S IN THE BOX

STEERING DISASSEMBLY

01 This is everything we received from CPP to address the wornout steering in our C-10. The complete steering linkage kit (P/N 7387SLK-CP-UG) comes with inner and outer tie rod ends, upgraded billet aluminum adjusters, pitman arm and idler arm. The new 500 series steering gear box (P/N CP50014) comes ready to bolt in. We also opted for the Magna Pure filter (P/N 20-0038F) to keep the power steering fluid clean, and a new rag joint coupler (P/N RJC-730R) to finish the job.

02 With the truck safely placed on jack stands, we removed the wheel to access the suspension. You can also see the previously upgraded control arms and coil springs. The first step in removing the factory steering is extracting the outer tie rod where it connects to the spindle. We removed the cotter pin and castle nut, and struck the spindle at the steering arm to jolt the tapered tie rod and break it free. If the tie rod won’t come loose easily, it’s safe to use a pickle fork because we won’t reuse these parts. Once it was free, we let it hang and moved on to the center link.

03 The center link, or drag link, is what connects the steering from one side of the truck to the other. The inner tie rods connect to this link in the same manner as the spindle. To remove them, we followed the same process. They were a little more difficult to break free, though.

04 We used the pickle fork to separate the inner tie rod from the center link. The fork end of the tool is tapered; so, the further into the joint it goes the larger it gets, forcing the joint to separate.

05 In order to get the center link out of the truck we disconnected it from the idler arm. We figured this would give us room to remove it, but we ended up going one step further and removed the idler arm pivot from the frame rail.

06

The passenger side tie rod was left connected to the center link so we could get to it easier off the truck. Doing so was actually more difficult than removing the one on the driver’s side. These can be difficult to access when they’re on the truck, but they’re stubborn when they’ve been removed too, so we had our work cut out for us.