Well I’d never heard that before Dusty, you’re the first one to bring that up. But being the doubting Thomas that I am, I just had to go out and check the pitman arm shaft on my 1950, 3600. Yep, you’re absolutely correct, the spline is tapered (3.5°) and that would account for about 95% of the problem that the guys have had getting them off. The other 5% would be the rust.
Each to his own but beating on it with a hammer is certainly not the way to break it loose. I’ve never had a problem pulling them with the proper “pitman arm puller” and a little concentrated heat applied with a no. 1 or 2 torch tip, playing the heat around the arm outside of the spline. A rosebud tip would be over kill in my opinion and difficult to put the heat where you really need it. I also have a heat blanket (Refersil) that I place around the back side of the arm before I heat it.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
Well I’d never heard that before Dusty, you’re the first one to bring that up. But being the doubting Thomas that I am, I just had to go out and check the pitman arm shaft on my 1950, 3600. Yep, you’re absolutely correct, the spline is tapered (3.5°) and that would account for about 95% of the problem that the guys have had getting them off. The other 5% would be the rust.
Each to his own but beating on it with a hammer is certainly not the way to break it loose. I’ve never had a problem pulling them with the proper “pitman arm puller” and a little concentrated heat applied with a no. 1 or 2 torch tip, playing the heat around the arm outside of the spline. A rosebud tip would be over kill in my opinion and difficult to put the heat where you really need it. I also have a heat blanket (Refersil) that I place around the backside of the arm before I heat it.
Don't use chassis grease, it will not flow and you end up with a situation something similar to cavatation in a liquid, that is, channels in the grease and you will get no lubrication to the balls. With a new seal you should be able to use heavy hypoid grease and not have any leakage. I use Penrite steering gear lube but a 140 gear lube would perform fine also.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
