The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 2-Ton Steering Box

I have a 57' Chevy 6400 truck and the steering wheel has always been really hard. I while back I made the comment and it was suggested that when the truck was restored it was possible that someone installed a gear box from a smaller truck which has a different gear ratio.

My question is, will the gear box off a C60, which is the next generation of trucks, work/fit?

Hy rautru, the short answer is no it will not fit. I would go through the entire steering system and make sure everything is up to specifications, nothing too tight. I would also go through the steering box using the adjustment procedure in the maintenance manual, hope that helps.

Ok. I'm guessing for something like that the steering box and column must come out. If so, is it like the AD trucks, in the sense that the cab has to be lifted? I'm going off of my memory, which isn't my best attribute. However, I thought I had read that in a thread a long time ago.

Hy rautru, it is not necessary to remove the steering box to make the adjustments. If you have to remove your steering box the hardest part will be removing the pitman arm and steering wheel, it won't be necessary to remove the cab to remove the steering box, hope that helps.

Thanks for the info 3B. I started reading other posts about steering boxes and was able to determine that I do have the right gear box. I also came a cross a thread that has a pdf file with an excerpt from the shop manual on how to clean and adjust the gearbox. Mine has quite a bit of grease on the exterior, which makes me wonder, what's left in the interior? I'm gonna give it a shot.

Raul- Hope that works out and you only have to adjust your steering box. Worse case scenario that you need to pull the column out, just thought I'd chime in about pulling the steering wheel and pitman arm. It's not that difficult and a couple of pullers do most of the hard work. I pulled a column today from a '59 3200 and the method should apply to yours if needed.

You'll want to pull the steering wheel first. A 3 arm puller works well. Remove two of the three gearbox mounting bolts to the frame then using a pitman arm puller, remove the pitman arm. Then you can remove the other bolt that is behind the arm. Last you'll want to remove the column bracket that holds the steering column in place at the bottom of the dash.

I have learned through trial, and mostly error, this order of removal works best. I have done things somewhat in the reverse order, but I had to fight the steering column that was already loose, and it made the job a lot harder than it should have been. It was probably common sense to do it as I've outlined here, but common sense and I don't always go hand in hand. And most 'Bolters reading this are probably getting a good chuckle about attempting my former reverse order removal method. (It's that common sense thing again).

If you don't have the pullers needed, you can rent them from O'Reilly or Auto Zone.


On another note, did you find your 6 lug wheels for your '57?


Gary

Sounds like a good plan of attack on that gear box. I'm gonna go ahead and pull it though and be thorough. I got the three arm puller for steering wheel from AutoZone and plan to get the Pittman arm puller as well.

As far as the wheels go, no, I haven't got them yet. There's a gentleman that offered to sell me an early sixties C60 flatbed for $500 and its got the one piece wheels. I figured I'd buy the truck, get the wheels and scrap the rest. I should get most of my money back. However, the truck doesn't have a title and you need one to scrap it. If i had a place to store it, I would part it out because i hate to see them get scrapped but i have no place to store it.



Have you seen the wheels on the '55 yet?

Before going to all the trouble of removing the steering column I'd remove the drag link to see if your hard steering is the box or not.

If someone years ago filled the box with chassis grease instead of gear oil the grease could have hardened making it hard for the balls inside to move back and forth.

Mike B

Ok Mike, that makes a lot of sense to me. What I'm gathering is, remove the drag link, if the steering improves, then my problem is not the gear box, but something else. Maybe something in just one wheel.

I'm not sure if this is an indication of that, but it is harder to steer to the left than it is to steer to the right. Any special tools to remove the drag link?

You can either pull the pitman arm off of the steering box shaft with the puller or use a pickle fork to remove the ball joint from the pitman arm.

Mike B

Heading out bright and early (or in my case, just early) tomorrow to bring the truck home. Hope to be back late tomorrow or early Friday and will let you know about the wheels.


Thanks, Gary

No rush. It'll be Tuesday before I'm back at my home away from home. Odessa.

A good tip for not everyone would think of that. Thanks.

Thanks guys. I plan to try that out Tuesday afternoon.

Any ideas on why it's harder to steer to the left as opposed to the right?

Raul

That sounds like it's already been adjusted a few times.I had a 66 C-60that did that,and it actually fell apart at the end of the block-I got home by only making right turns. I discovered the box off a '74 C-60 would bolt up,but required using to old Pittman Arm and re-clocking it a few teeth on the splines. It was set up for power steering,but it drove so nice I didn't bother with that. Outside of routing and connecting the four hoses,I'd have had to clamp one end of the hydraulic ram onto the tie rod and build a tab on the axle at the centerline to attach the other end of the ram,but I wasn't set up for that degree of fabrication.
Speed

Raul- Got the truck home and it has 10 lug split rims on it, neither of which is what you need for your '57.



Gary