Need advice, 98 tahoe pitman arm

[Terry S]

I crawled under my wife's 98 Tahoe 4X4 a couple of days ago to find out where all the steering slop was coming from and discovered that the pitman arm appears to be totally shot (lots of slop where the big tapered pin swivels in the arm). has anyone here ever changed one of these? There appears to be a frame cross member right below where the arm attaches to the steering gearbox. Do I have to take the whole gearbox out just to get a puller on the arm or does chevy make some special zillion dollar tool for this or what?
Any advice would be appreciated.

[Alexis]

man i hated when i had to change out one of those, it's a real btch the first few times, yes you do got to unbolt the steering box so you can use the puller on it. Gm does sell a zillion dallor tool. which sucks cause it's a zillion dallors, lol. But what must get done must get done. before you unbolt the box loosen the nut on it , then unbolt it. Unbolting will allow you to move in into a position so you can take the air-gun to it. you're going to need to attach an exstention with the swivel. i use to cut through the pitman arm to release some of the tension. be careful not to cut to deep. watch out cause sometimes the socket would just hammer at it then come off and it's duck and pray you dont get hit. hope this helps.

oh if you dont know there's a little sleve that coems down out of the steering box that cover the thread that the pitman arm attach to, make sure to lift that or you goign to have a hard time getting the puller. just incase you didnt know about. i had a hard time till i ask someone.

[Piston]

What we do on that type setup is take a cutoff wheel and cut through 80% of the pitman arm then take a ballpeen hammer and pop it once or twice. They slide right off because the cuts have released the pressure. Sometimes you have to cut almost all the way through. It's either that or pull the sway bar and use the puller.

[Terry S]

Thanks for the advice!

[Blackhawkdc]

There should be just enough room to squeek the pitman arm out without unbolting or removing anything. should be able to remove the nut, pound on the arm a couple times good with a hammer, then grab a nice long heavy metal bar and go through from the engine compartment and place it on the top side of the pitman arm, then just pound it off. cutting the arm part of the way through helps a bit too.

[Palf70Step]

I was told this is something that goes sooner than it should on the 88-98 trucks. Had my 96 done last year at 100K and it was real bad. I was lazy and used the checkbook to change mine

[jerry moss]

we change lots of idler and pitman arms on the new body style trucks . i always unblot the box after the center link is off and use a puller, never tried cutting one first but if you can get in to it, it would save some time. best of luck.