Truck Repair: Pulling problems, lower ball joints, ford f 250

Question
I have a 94 ford f-250 4x4 and have been having some front end problems that I just cant figure out,here it goes a few weeks ago the truck started feeling a bit loose in the front end kind of like I wasnt geeting real great response from my steering input, I made a quick inspection and found that the right outer tie rod was marginal and decided to replace it over the weekend, in the couple of days before the weekend a whole new problem started, there are times after I make a turn usually to the right the truck will pull hard to the right after I complete the turn, sometimes it will remain that way untill I make a left turn, some times as I get to speed it will suddely stop pulling wich sends me suddenly to the left since I am pulling that way to keep it straight anyway, and yet other times I will hit a good size bump and it will straighten itself out.  On further inspection I found that the upper and lower ball joints were shot and figured that would be the problem so I replaced them and the tierod end, after I got it back together and test drove it I was surprised to find it was doing the same thing, possibly not as severe but still doing it, I noticed that the outside of the passenger side tire was wearing faster than any of the other tires so I tried swapping the front tires right to left and that actually made a bit of a difference, I had a friend of mine help me do a very thorugh inspection of all the front end parts and everything seems to be in good shape, we came down to it must either be the steering box itself or he belives all I need is an alignment and that will fix the problem.  I have no idea where to go from here, I dont want to go get an alignment only to find that it is a differnt problem and will need to be realigned after I replace other parts, I also have no idea if it actually could be the steering box or even how to go about testing it, I cant get it to do anything abnormal when I am testing the front end.  Any help would be greatly appriciated, I am at my ropes end here!!!!

Answer
Hello Abe,
A few thoughts...
4X4...are your hubs staying locked in, and if so, there is a needle bearing in the spindle that is terribly hard to grease, and will try to stack up the bearings, so keep that in mind.

Another thing that comes to mind is I had a pickup that the brake pistons didn't want to go back in when the brakes were released and would pull to the side.
This should be relatively easy to find by feeling the front hubs after it has been pulling, and smell for brake pad smell.
Quite often during a turn, the brakes are applied.
You could also jack up the front wheel, and see if you can rotate it easily.

On Chevy pickups, I have had the front brake hoses deteriorate inside, and plug the hose like a flapper valve, not releasing the brake fluid.
Again, jack it up, and see if it is being held. A quick check to see if it is the piston or brake fluid, is to loosen the bleeder screw. If it releases right away, the piston is probably ok, and something is blocking the fluid from returning to the master cylinder. Hose, line, proportioning valve, or master cylinder itself.

Out of alignment shouldn't pull to one side...I would expect it to wander, but not necessarily pull, especially hard, and then release.

Van