Noticed on my 98 3/4 ton diesel- going down the highway or interstate, when I go around curve to the right it feels like something is loose (I can feel a "rattle") in the steering wheel. Truck has had 4 ball joints, all control arm bushings, pittman and idler arms replaced. Tie rod ends all appear tight, and I can't see a noticable amount of slack in the gearbox. Truck has around 240k miles. Where would be the next place to look? Thx-

The best diagnostic I know is to run it up on ramps, turn the wheels to the problem angle and get a helper to move the steering wheel back and forth. Visually or by feel you should be able to isolate the problem area. I had a loose/ratteling feeling on bumps/potholes on a Durango with 120k on some bad roads. I isolated it with the above test. It turned our to be the steering rack and/or inner tie rod ends. A reman rack from NAPA cleared up the problem.

In another situation with a Neon @140k, the car wanted to turn itself past a certain point on right turns. Sort of the opposite of self centering. It had been curbed hard by daughter #2 in an ice storm. I rebuilt the front suspension and replaced a bent hub - which it needed - and the problem continued. By process of elimination, the rack was bad also. A NAPA reman rack cleared it up.

check for loose steering gear box and or the connection joint in the steering shaft...

Track bar........get it fixed with a very good replacement piece. My truck did the same exact symptoms and had it replaced. The shop kept sticking cheepies in and they kept going bad. Finally one failed out of the blue and I hit a parked car with my truck. Get a good quality piece.

If it's slight rattle, there's a fix for it.

http://www.rocksolidramtrucksteering.com/

Made the world of diff on my 98 2500.

I'll bet that's it adobedude. Gonna check it out this evening. Thanks for the link!

If the trackbar hasn't ever been changed it's over 140k past it's life expectancy.

What is a trackbar exactly?

On a 2 wheel drive? I don't remember seeing anything like that under there-

Have you looked at sway bar end links/ bushings? when they get old they shrink and can cause a rattling noise.

gear box has issues , thats what i have ran into

My '01 4x4 auto only has 34k on it, and it even has a slight steering wheel jiggle on rough roads, and it does wander a little. The spring at the bottom of the column has practically no play in it, but I can imagine 10 years on a cheap ball bearing with little grease, it is probably starting to wear out.