Recently rebuilt my steering box

Jack Boelte · October 11, 2001

I used to use about 1 qt of power steering fluid every 120 miles! The front end was well lubricated! Messy too.

I bought a kit from NAPA for thirty bucks, pulled the box and started taking it apart. By the way, the Haynes manual willonly tell you how to remove it! Luckily the kit came with good instructions. I ran into a few minor snags, but itturned out good. The pitman shaft is all pitted around the seal area, so, I'll be doing this again. That's ok, I need to put one of the balls back in that I found on the garage floor!

If anybody is considering this, let me know and I'll tell you some of the things I ran into. It was easy considering what a significant part it is.

I'm so proud of myself!

76BBSub · October 11, 2001

WOW, that's one of the jobs I never wanted to try. I know a friend who is pretty mechanically inclined that never got one back together, way to go!!

My steering box is OK, what I had to rebuild was the power steering pump. This is much easier than rebuilding the steering box, IMHO, but there were still a couple little tricks.

Did you notice anything wrong with the one ball missing, or did you only find out when you found the ball? I thought they wouldn't work right if you didn't have all the little balls in there, ya larn sumthin new evra day...

Jeff

Jack Boelte · October 12, 2001

It seems to be OK with the one ball missing. When I was purging the air out, there was a stiff spot at one end of the wheel rotation; I don't know if that was part of it or not. It got better! The system takes about two quarts of power steering fluid.

I did learn to be very careful when pushing the carrier block(?? the big piece that is driven by the worm gear with the recirculating balls and drives the pitman shaft) out. Don't let it pop out, fall on the floor and spit little metal balls all over the floor, that's bad.

Also, there are 'O' rings under the teflon packing rings. Mine were so brittle that they cracked and fell out when I tried to remove them.

Oh yeah, don't over tighten the thrust nut(?? big nut around the steering input shaft, preloads the bearings), make sthe steering feel a little funny when driving down the road.

Oh yeah, getting the balls back in was a trick! Assemble the input shaft, push the big carrier thing with the recirculating tube out. Slide it in till you can see where the recirculating tube goes through the pitman shaft 'window'. Rotate the carrier and pop the balls in one at a time, ensuring they go the right direction in the screw. The balls should travel from one hole to the other. After you get ALL the balls in (look on the floor), assemble the recirculating tube, tighten the bolts, and realign the carrier thing. The rest of the assembly is pretty easy.

October 12, 2001

Hey, Jack

How about doing a tech article on that. I've never attempted it, but would like to learn more about how it's done, and any problems you had that weren't covered in the manual/instructions.

BTW, don't worry about that "extra" ball.

Everyone that works on old stuff knows that if you rebuild it enough times, you'll have enough spare parts to build another one from scratch. It doesn't matter what component it is!