Steering boxes - Learning from scratch.

I rebuilt power steering box in my 68. All seals, piston rings and main bearings. This re- build kit was available from my old fashioned local auto parts store. There were a couple of challenges. I he first was devising a wrench to be able to unscrew gear shaft retaining nut and then finding a small enough pull scale to check the worm shaft side play and the center bearing pre- load. It if the side play would have been too much in the worm shaft I may have been screwed as you are supposed to replace the assembly. Not sue if that is available. I haven't touched a manual gearbox, but worn teeth on the cross shaft or ball nut could be a challenge.
 
commando1 said:
Steve, you hit upon the gist of my thread. What's the sense of diving into these boxes if these parts are worn.
And the rebuilders. What do they do. Button them up with new seals and call them "rebuilt"
Click to expand...
Wont claim expertise... but have a little experience with another brand. The kits I dealt with were all seals... IDK how much would have been available to go deeper, but working in a dealer where everything gets a warranty period... I was denied the ability to go further with the one I had that had a mangled ball come out of it.

In truth, when the only concern was to solve an external leak... you use about 10% of the kit and don't poke the bear. If no leaks and just sloppy, a careful adjustment often works... easy to get too tight with that. If there was a concern that it wasn't going to be that simple... reman box. The rebuilders have sourced or produced their parts supply... but it gets past a backyard tinkerer fast.

Check this link, I don't know that they do all this work to every unit... but it gives a good idea of what might be done when working with worn out cores.
Rebuilding Your Steering Box - Mopar Muscle Magazine
 
saforwardlook said:
Besides resealing your steering gear, and maybe adjusting the play, what else did you do in your rebuild since you didn't touch the ballscrew assembly. And what would you do if the slop in the gear was too much from worn teeth to reduce it to an acceptable level?
Click to expand...

Yes I only resealed and changed the bearing and checked preloads and twiddled with the reaction springs to firm up the steering feel. I think that If the ballscrew assembly is sloppy or if tooth are worn out I really cannot see any reason to try to fix it as better cores are available for 50 bucks or less even here in Finland.

I think that most of the boxes just require resealing to continue working years to come
 
I'll add some advice here which has worked for me pretty well with these old pumps and boxes in the past.

Flush the system. Take the return line off the pump and cap the nipple, wheels up preferred, with a helper... run the car with the return hose in a jug or pan to catch the mess and plenty of fluid and a funnel ready to go... helper turns the wheel lock to lock slowly while you pour a few quarts of steering fluid through the system to flush out as much of the old fluid and sediment as possible... Usually makes a world of difference for an old system to get purged.

I would start with this before making adjustments or condemning any non-leaking parts. Don't use ATF for your power steering unless the car calls for it... I've seen that sometimes too.
 
Excellent thread and excellent advice IMO.
FWIW, I flushed mine to a smaller degree and even this, while only using 2 quarts, fixed the noise and foaming fluid. I still had a bad input seal but that was self inflicted by my letting the steering column hang unsupported while working on the instrument panel.
Another fwiw, I tried "fixing" the system a few years ago using some stop leak and I WON'T use it again. Also, IMO, if the steering pump need to be changed the system definitely should be thoroughly flushed. If a pump fails it may have introduced bad things into the system.
Just my .02.
 
So what have we learned?
Cleaned, resealed, and spray painted is the majority of the rebuilds your going to get. If you take the slop out of the sector shaft mesh and the play out of input shaft it will most likely be as good as 90% of the cars you have ever driven.
Some people don't like ATF? Guess putting motor oil in there would make your head explode.:poke:
I guess my 80w140 fix for a oil light is no good either.:wtf:
My curiosity is up now so I'm going to pull one of these apart this winter.
 
70bigblockdodge said:
So what have we learned?
Cleaned, resealed, and spray painted is the majority of the rebuilds your going to get. If you take the slop out of the sector shaft mesh and the play out of input shaft it will most likely be as good as 90% of the cars you have ever driven.
Some people don't like ATF? Guess putting motor oil in there would make your head explode.:poke:
I guess my 80w140 fix for a oil light is no good either.:wtf:
My curiosity is up now so I'm going to pull one of these apart this winter.
Click to expand...
I've learned that seals n stuff is the easy part.
 
I imagine there is a world of difference between the rebuilding of a manual and power steering gear as well as what would work as lube for either/both.
 
Yes? No? Maybe? Should bolt right in and it's the same price as a rebuilt.

Nos Firm Feel Mopar Steering Box # 3643334 $400.00
NOS MOPAR FIRM FEEL COP CAR POLICE STEERING BOX # 3643334

PART IS NEW IN MOPAR BOX
PART WAS PURCHASED NEW IN 1991 AND NEVER USED

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