Time to pay it forward. ;-)
Part # 7825091 is a direct replacement (There are three versions through the years) for the # 5690726 - 1968-1971 Steering Cylinder Ram. It is not really repairable. There are seal kits available BUT the people that sell them say they don't work for long. The REAL leak is a seal inside and that can't be replaced unless you cut the cylinder apart. So I purchased a new part.
And the replacement begins!
First item: The bolt and nut (1 1/8" Nut) which holds the passenger-side end of the ram is very much like a ball joint. It's a tapered press fit. Veeerrry hard to remove.
I ended up using a 6" (LARGE) three tip puller. Switching one leg short, no extension, and flipped the tip to grab onto the front side bolt. The other two legs went over and under the cross member. See Photo1.
Second item - The drivers-side end threads into a pinch fitting. Removed the pinch bolt and began to unthread it. Very difficult to unscrew. I will revisit this when I put on the replacement. Photo4
Third item : The fluid lines are difficult to remove when it's in place so I took them off when I got the assembly down from the cross member.
Now the fun begins with the new component!
1. Remove the fluid from the old cylinder. Pump in and out several times.
2. Remove the rubber boot covering the passenger end and then clamp drivers end (fluid lines) in a vise.
3. Remove the cotter pin keeping the passenger end interior castle nut from loosening.
4. Find a piece of tool hardened steel roughly 1/8 thick x 1.125 long and taller than 1/2 inch. I modified with a grinder a cheap, bladed, scraping tool I had on hand after seriously bending several pieces of steel. See Photo2. The small piece of steel in the photo is a piece of angle iron which bent quickly.
5. Clean out the cotter pin holes around the passenger end. At this point I noticed the castle nut was softer than the hardened part so I heated the hardened part, not the nut, CAREFULLY (because there is a lot of grease here) to expand it slightly and assist removal.
6. Place your tool steel in one of the two slots in the nut and use a wrench or? to remove the nut. Mine snapped loose and came out easily but I had cleaned the threads as well as I could. See Photo3
7. Remove the pin, the 2 end pivot? plates which are dimpled to accept the ball end of the pin.
8. Remove the grease fitting.
9. Clean everything you removed.
10. Grease the socket and follow the removal in reverse order to put the new part in service after reading the re-assembly notes.
Re-Assembly Notes:
I used a lot of torque tightening the interior castle nut to really stiffen the ball in the socket - not sure what the torque should be but I think I put 80-100 ft.lbs. on it.
Don't worry about the fluid - it will fill when you start the car and turn the steering wheel back and forth. It took several times and more than 2 quarts of fluid to fill.
I also used some long, bright green pull ties to hold the rubber boot on the new part.
As you get back to the Second item (the threaded end) I had a really hard time getting the rod to start threading. See Photo4. After about a 1/2 hour fussing with trying to put pressure on the rod as it turned and trying to make sure the rod was lined up to the pinch fitting I had a thought. What if the pinch fitting is too tight which makes it too small to start threading? Bingo. I used a chisel tip to spread the pinch and it started threading. Yahoo! But wow - so hard to turn and the chisel keeps falling out. Hmmm. Look closely at Photo2. The small piece of steel has a half moon scratch on one side. I threaded the pinch bolt in the THREADED side of the pinch fitting and placed the piece of steel in the pinch gap. As the bolt turned down it spread the gap! Now the rod threaded much more easily.
Hope this helps someone else !
SteeringCylinderPost-Photo1SteeringCylinderPost-Photo2SteeringCylinderPost-Photo3SteeringCylinderPost-Photo4
