94 Explorer steering is acting REALLY weird...

A siezed axle u-joint at the knuckle can give the exact symptoms you are having.... continuing to operate the car this way is not only unsafe but can accelerate the wear on other front end components.

A repair of this nature does require a fair degree of mechanical aptitude and knowledge..... can be done with hand tools (special socket is required for the hub nuts) and a bench vise.

Jim Warman snipped-for-privacy@telusplanet.net

Hmmm... with the transfer case in 2W and the hubs unlocked, the front shafts are not turning. I know this because they make noise when they _are_ turning :-) But the U-joints still have to flex on turns, I guess, so is that what you're saying might be causing this problem?

Would this work to verify that the U-joints are the problem: Put the truck in 4WD (hubs locked, transfer case to 4H), drive 6 feet, then go back to 2WD (hubs free) and see if it's improved at all? The theory being that this would rotate the front U-joints, possibly freeing them up and at least leaving them in a different position. (Note that if this test "fixes" the steering I still wouldn't consider the truck driveable.)

At this point the truck is probably not worth repairing; it has other problems besides the one I'm talking about here. But I need transportation. So what I'd like to do is, rather than "repair" in the truest sense of getting everything working again, just put it in a safe condition so I can continue to get around.

Like I said right off, I'm not driving it until I can get it to go where I point the wheel; that's just common sense. But I'm not going to be taking it offroad any more, and I'm not going to be taking it cross-country any more. I do need to get to interviews (so I can have money to buy replacement transportation) and so on.

How hard would it be to just lose the front shafts and say no more 4WD? And (assuming it's the U-joints) would that leave me with a safe RWD vehicle? I've been driving without 4WD for 2 years now, because of the bad u-joints and not enough $$ to replace them. No reason I can't put up with it for another few months.

Or is it time to make a donation to these guys:

You could remove the front drive axles altogether.... they really have nothing to do with supporting the weight of the vehicle. The workload is roughly the same - take the brakes off, rotors off, spindles off (no, not the knuckles) - remove the shafts and reassemble. Don't forget to stuf something inside the inboard end of the spindle to keep contamination from washing into the hub/bearing area and cut whatever flush so as not to get tangled in rotating parts.

Bear in mind that siezed ball joints can also present similar problems but my experience has shown the u-joints to be more common.

As for the donation..... one would have to take into account the safety related aspects to decide. Even at the dealership level, I'm still presented with the occasional car that I refuse to road test...... when I worked for myself and when I worked for other independants I was amazed at the number of people that don't care if they can stop or not as long as we can get the car to go...

Jim Warman snipped-for-privacy@telusplanet.net

I get the feeling it wouldn't be much more trouble than this to just go ahead and replace the U-joints; the parts aren't that expensive.

Anybody wanna buy a handyman special? :-)