Hey list - sorry I missed you yesterday. Some stuff came up and I wasn't
able to post Part 3. But here it is.
Got the gear box out, drained the fluid out of it, and the fluid was full of
tiny metal particles. Not a good sign! Removed the bolts and outer cover
to see what was inside. Don't know how many of you have seen inside of a
gear box, but here it goes - off of the pittman arm shaft it makes a 90
degree turn and splits into a Y. At the end of each leg of the Y, there is
a pin the size of an eraser, maybe a little longer, and they are bolted into
a bearing. Picture on a clock one at 10:00 and one at 2:00. They set into
the worm gear, which is like a giant screw. As you turn the steering wheel,
these pins are supposed to roll as they ride up and down in the threads of
the screw, which makes the pittman arm turn. One pin looked perfect - half
of the other pin was badly pitted . They looked like they were made of the
same material - kind of like what a wheel bearing race would be made of. I
set it back together, turned the shaft by hand, and when it got to the
pitted part the bearing wouldn't turn and tried to push on the worm gear.
So this is what causes the popping noise. Surprise, surprise! Once it got
past the bad spot, it would pop and go back to turning.
Decided that at this time, I'd be money ahead to check out the replacement
gear box I had gotten, before setting it in the truck. Drained the fluid,
took the cover off, and everything looked great. Reassembled it. The outer
steering column tube up near the steering wheel had several chains welded on
it and some holes had been burnt in it too, so I decided to swap the tubes.
Removed the 4 bolts and tube. There were several thin shims there. Left
the shims with their respective boxes and just swapped tubes. Bolted it
back together, tried to turn the steering shaft, and it wouldn't turn. At
this point, decided I'd have to experiment with the shims until we got it
set right again. Ended up having to add a couple of shims to take some of
the pressure off of the bearing. Ended up with a real slight drag as you
turned it by hand, and left it like that. Installed it back in the truck,
took the come-along, hooked it on the tree on the drivers side, then placed
the front motor support back in place and let the engine down - and here's
a tip. Be careful to make sure the radiator studs line up with the holes as
you're doing this because they will hit first and if they don't line up the
radiator will go upwards and the fan will hit the fan shroud and may damage
the radiator. At this point, the weight was back on the front wheels. Set
the steering wheel on, but didn't bolt it. Hooked up the pittman arm,
bolted it, but didn't torque it. Filled up the gear box (I used 90 weight),
and gave it several turns to see how it worked. Boy is it great when you
don't have a surprise inside! At that point, we decided it was good to go
and started hooking everything back up on the truck. By the way, I didn't
change the gear box adjustment with the screw and jam nut on the outside.
Seems like the factory had it set where it was just about to touch when it
was screwed in, so I left it that way.
Now with everything said and done, the truck steers great. Wouldn't have a
second thought about doing another one. Someone mentioned on the list that
you can just raise the motor straight up and get the gear box out. This may
be - I tried and tried and tried and couldn't get mine to clear the fuel
pump without moving the motor to the right. If somebody else has done this
without pulling the motor to the right, let me know because I'd love to know
how to do it!
Well all, tomorrow I'll give you Part 1 on how to remove a missile launcher
from a baby's mouth. Just joking - don't have a baby! Thanks for putting
up with the long postings - if anybody needs help or has questions, please
e-mail! Be glad to help. Talk to you later!
Harold
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Aug 07 2000 - 22:15:58 PDT