Manual Steering Box Rebuild Questions

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64 SRT8 Dart

64 SRT8 Dart

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Okay so I got my manual boxfully disassembled and all cleaned up inside and out....yes those little ball bearings in the worm gear were not so fun at first either, lol, who comes up with something like that,lol ...and, just have a few questions.

Does anyone sell the seals for the steering shaft and the pitman shaft?

What kind of lube/oil is supposed to go in there? What do you guys run?

When I pulled that thing apart it just looked like someone nearly packed it with wheel bearing grease.

Thanks for your help!
 
Firm Feel will sell you the seals, and could probably tell you what use for lubricant. I believe the factory used some type of grease.
 
The service info would have believe that the box holds 80/90 gear lube. If you have the box open I am sure that you can see it is not gear lube.

Once long ago I read somewhere that the best substitute for the original lube is a homemade concotion of 80/90 and bearing grease/chassis grease. What I read was you take equal parts of gear lube and bearing grease and put it into a coffee can. Take the coffee can outside and heat it up until it mixes and then pour it in before it sets up and hardens back into grease. I have never tried this, but it is what I remember reading.

They were very clear on the heat it up outside part, it is supposed to make quite a stink.
 
When I build them, I use a good quality wheel bearing grease, coat everything real well and pack as much inside as you can. Gear oil just leaks out. The last time I got seals, the dealer still had them but that was years ago so who knows what they have now. I would think NAPA would have some.
 
Gear oil (90wt) is too thin and will probably leak out even with a new seal, and wheel bearing grease is a little too thick, mixing them together will work if you cant get the right stuff . The FSM calls for 11 ounces of steering gear lubricant which is a really thick (600wt) fluid. John Deere corn head grease will work good especially in boxes with worn seals.
 
Alright, thanks everyone! Lot's of different routes.

Maybe I should just put a grease zerk at the end of the box where the bearing is for the worm shaft, put another grease zerk for each of the bushings on the pitman shaft and another one by the upper bearing for the worm/selctor shaft. lol
 
daliant said:
Gear oil (90wt) is too thin and will probably leak out even with a new seal, and wheel bearing grease is a little too thick, mixing them together will work if you cant get the right stuff . The FSM calls for 11 ounces of steering gear lubricant which is a really thick (600wt) fluid. John Deere corn head grease will work good especially in boxes with worn seals.
Click to expand...
Grease is too thick?? What's the problem with thick grease in a manual steering box?
 
cudamark said:
Grease is too thick?? What's the problem with thick grease in a manual steering box?
Click to expand...
There's not alot of movement inside of a steering box and thick grease doesn't climb very well without movement, thick grease will work but thinner is better.
 
If everything gets coated on assembly and you pack the box with enough grease, there is nowhere for the grease to go. I've rarely seen an upper sector bearing failure. It's almost always the worm gear assy and in that part, it's usually the contact area against the sector gear or the bearings on either end. Water and/or dirt incursion because of failure of the imput seal is usually the cause of the bearing failure, not lack of lube.
 
Think I am going to try and pull this one off myself also. Thick bearing grease would seem to be the ticket.
 
I copied the following info from a site a few years ago from a guy who professionally rebuilds steering gear.

The Proper Lubricant
Manufacturers used a special moly-based steering gear lubricant inside the steering box. It lubricates the mechanical actions of the box well, is thick enough to cling to parts without running off and settling to the bottom, and is soft enough to flow back and forth inside the box by the pumping action of the rack block and sector teeth. Heat from the exhaust manifold and engine will soften it on cold days and yet the grease stays thick enough not to liquify and seep out of the bottom seal. A good moly or lithium based chassis grease will work in this situation and is easy to find in tubes and install using a common cartridge-style grease gun..
Do not use a liquid lubricant (such as 90w axle fluid) in a steering box. Liquid lubricants will settle in the box and not lubricate the upper portions of the gears. It will also seep through the bearings and leak out the bottom seal. Do not use wheel bearing grease inside the box. Wheel bearing grease is too thick to coat and work properly. Wheel bearing grease is designed for the high heat enviroment of the brake system and does not soften with heat and will not flow through the box like a moly-based chassis lubricant will.
 
Exactly. Some GM manual boxes even had grease fittings on them from the factory. What's that tell you? lol


grimreaper said:
I copied the following info from a site a few years ago from a guy who professionally rebuilds steering gear.

The Proper Lubricant
Manufacturers used a special moly-based steering gear lubricant inside the steering box. It lubricates the mechanical actions of the box well, is thick enough to cling to parts without running off and settling to the bottom, and is soft enough to flow back and forth inside the box by the pumping action of the rack block and sector teeth. Heat from the exhaust manifold and engine will soften it on cold days and yet the grease stays thick enough not to liquify and seep out of the bottom seal. A good moly or lithium based chassis grease will work in this situation and is easy to find in tubes and install using a common cartridge-style grease gun..
Do not use a liquid lubricant (such as 90w axle fluid) in a steering box. Liquid lubricants will settle in the box and not lubricate the upper portions of the gears. It will also seep through the bearings and leak out the bottom seal. Do not use wheel bearing grease inside the box. Wheel bearing grease is too thick to coat and work properly. Wheel bearing grease is designed for the high heat enviroment of the brake system and does not soften with heat and will not flow through the box like a moly-based chassis lubricant will.
Click to expand...
 
Spent a little time to try to find a answer for this did a little research on Fords (because I worked for them for 15 years) recommendation for manual steering boxes and found they use NLGI #2 grease which is the same grease they recommend for wheel bearings at least since the 70,s it has molybdenum disulfide in it. My 63 Plymouth service manual in the steering gear repair section says do not use gear oil in the steering gear to use "a good grade of multi purpose lubricant" ie grease or steering gear lubricant when possible.It also says to pack 11 ounces in the gear. But in the maintainance section they say you can add gear oil to it. This may have been so the grease would not harden up. So my conclusion is to pack the box with NLGI #2 grease and when you service it down the road use small amounts of gear oil. Note NLGI and NLGI #2 are not the same grease.I do agree with some of the statements above about not using wheel bearing grease at least for the older long fiber wheel bearing grease

Brian
 
I can tell you what the latest "trick" grease to pack the steering box with is. It's commonly called "Red Grease" and it's available from several lubricant makers. I use the Wolfs Head brand thats a NLGI grade 2 Lithium Complex grease. This material has a very high impact resistance (think rough road with a manual steering box), it withstands 500 degree heat (exhaust system proximity), waterproof and has a very stable viscosity index. This is the grease to use in any manual box specially rough service. Dan
 
This will lubricate everything in your steering box properly and not leak out the bottom, and its only about 4 bucks for a 14oz tube at any John Deere dealer.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEwk_sYP6A8"]JESCO/John Deere Corn Head Grease - YouTube[/ame]
 
If you can easily find the prescribed lube, fine, but I wouldn't get too anal about it. I've used the moly disulfide stuff for over 30 years now without an issue. If everything is coated during assembly, it will be good for many years and untold miles.
 
64 SRT8 Dart,

Please post photos. I would love to see the insides of a manual box. I have one on the 64 Valiant I bought a few months ago and would like to know what I am getting into. Indeed, I have the Pitman arm off right now, rebuilding the steering linkage. I wasn't thinking of touching the box, but your work is encouraging me. I rebuilt the power gear box in my 65 Dart a few years ago and wasn't too hard (see my post). That beat shipping it somewhere and back and fretting losing it, plus the seal kit was cheap. Manual boxes are even rarer and more expensive.

Moly wheel bearing grease is very smooth and kind of liquid looking. Much different than old fiber grease. The John Deere grease above also looks good. I would even consider bicycle bearing grease. It comes in cans like wheel bearing grease and must be top quality for finicky bicyclists. Indeed bicycle ball bearings seem a very similar application to the manual steering box recirculating balls, plus I have a can at home.
 
I use CV axle grease in my manual boxes.
It comes in a tube, from NAPA.
It is semi-fluid, but stiff, and don't cost that much.
Kinda like a mix of 90W and axle grease.
 
Hey Bill here's some pics. Only takes about 3 min to pull apart now. lol
I didn't pull all the bearings out of the worm drive, it's sort of pain in the butt to get em all in right but not too bad....a lil scary when you take em apart for the first time because you hope you didn't just screw up and now have to take it somewhere to get fixed. lol
Overall...pretty simple though.
 

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Well, after many weeks, got my steering box all together with some added grease zerks.

Got one in between the bushings on the pitman shaft, one above the pitman shaft by the adjuster to grease the teeth, and another one at the end of the box right where the lower sector shaft bearing is.

Gotta be a little careful pumping it full.....started to actually push the pitman seal out!, lol and when I pulled the fill plug it shot grease about 6 inches across my hand, lol.
 

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