Jimmy front end problems

[bfrancis]

I am having some issues with my 1999 Jimmy front end. The truck is pulling hard to the right.(passenger direction). I have jacked the truck up by the control arms and tested the wheel play. Niether side has play in the 12:00/6:00 position. The pasenger side 3:00/9:00 is good as well. However I do have play on the driver side 3:00/9:00 position. What is the best way to narrow it down to what part is failing? I read on the message board if it has play in the 3:00/9:00 positon then it is can be 1 of 3 things, pitman arm, idler arm, or tierods. My question is how do I know which one of these is bad. Thanks in advance!

[xokayxo]

just thought i'd bump the thread because i'm having problems with this as well. i took my 98 jimmy in for alignment and they told me they could not align it because my idler and/or pitman arms were bad, as well as my ball joints and tie rod ends. well, i jacked it up and looked for myself and the ball joints looked just fine (they said that was the major problem). my jimmy also pulls to the right pretty bad, but i have 3:00/9:00 play on BOTH of my front wheels. i'd like to know what the best way to determine what is going wrong here, i.e. idler/pitman arms, tie rod ends, etc.

any help is appreciated! thanks guys

[bfrancis]

I have fixed my issue. It turns out it was very bad front tires. I knew they were wore out but I didnt realize the severity. After taking both off I found that both were wore into the metal parts of the tire. One even had a large flat spot in it. I did not think that having bad tires can cause the truck to pull and bounce as much as it had. After replacing all 4 tires the truck rides like new.