steering box teardown

[65-408]

My car had not driven in the 20 years before I got it, so I decided to go thru the steering box. It is a std 19:1 box, but I am adding quick turn pitman and idler arms to improve performance. Anyone have this combo? Wondering how it will be, as the quick turns are usually used on 16:1 boxes I think…

Box as removed (broken, seized up bolt and all):

Pull off Pitman arm w/ Autozone rental puller:

Remove cover plate and sector gear:

Sector Gear:

Remove the big sheetmetal locking nut and remove shaft and ball nut:

Address the broken bolt, center punch, drill... got lucky, was almost up to the tap drill size when it grabbed and turned the remaining threads of the broken bolt out:

Everything looked good, so I decided to just clean out all the grease, replace the seal and re-assemble and adjust:

Reinstall the shaft, supposed to tighten to pre-load the bearings and produce a shaft running torque of 4-5 in-lbs after the lock nut is tight:

Check the sector shaft shim clearance, should be .002�:

Put the sector gear back in with the adjusting screw, gasket and cover in place. Adjust the screw until the steering shaft running torque increases to 9-10 in-lbs at the center of its motion. These boxes are designed to drag at the center to ride better on the highway.

Pump it full O’ grease, paint, and a quick turn pitman arm and it hopefully ready for another 45 years of operation…

 

[6t6red]

Very nice write-up. This comes at a good time for me. I need to tear into my steering box because I have too much play in the steering shaft itself. I have a guy who is giving me his old box that he replaced and I was going to practice on that box first but your write-up helped me out with questions about the internals of the box. Good job. :10

 

[Jonk67]

Nice work and nice write up, where do I send my box?
j/k Stanger did mine this year, can't wait to test it.
Jon

 

[rsalway]

This is awesome.

 

[65-408]

I looked through http://www.stangerssite.com quite a bit prior to starting, he has some adjustment procedures and lube info and also what to look for for wear/damage, I would recommend it to anyone thinking about rebuilding...

I got lucky, my internals were perfect, nothing needed to be replaced...

 

[fordrule]

wow awesome job..

 

[abrahamfh]

Awesome write up. Thank you for including all the photographs, me likey pictures.

 

[gtscode]

I am with the others great write up and nice pics!

+1 for Randy at stangerssite.com he did everything for me.

 

[tarafied1]

very good write up, you should put it in the "tech articles" section so we can find it again when we need it. It's a great reference. Thanks for posting it.