Well the weather forecast finally stopped looking like a cloud with sleet coming out of it.. so after overextending myself with long bicycle rides in the sunshine, I decided to go ahead and further bend, stretch, twist, spindle and otherwise mutilate my body that's not used to doing all that after a cold winter of being pretty sedentary.
While doing so, I cracked open the steering box on my C60, and I'm pretty sure this was its first time seeing daylight inside since 1965. 59 year old GM steering grease looks a lot like mustard! But the parts were all still good enough to reuse, except for the new seals I installed. My neighbor was nice enough to lend me some white teflon sealant for the threads, so they won't leak either. And after a lovely trip to Tractor Supply in Puyallup, I had the quart of Super S 00 grease. The box took the whole quart, almost exactly, but it does feel a little better now and the preload over center even wound up being pretty correct once the bearings were tight and lubed with modern day goop. It took a couple of tries to stick the worm shaft into the lower bearing and have it stay put till I could get the cap on and threaded in without that lower bearing going crooked and having to take it apart again and fix it.
I think I preserved the relationship correctly between the two gears, because the box still has its full 6-3/4 turn of travel end to end, overcenter happens right at 3-3/8 turns, and the pitman arm/steering linkage arrangement is in the position it was when assembled before. I assume that if I had the gears wrong, there would be a turning radius issue as in the pitman arm would go really far one way and not far enough the other way depending on which way the gear teeth were misassembled.
After all that, I had to do some exhaust work on a friend's car the next day. So today I'm really stiff and sore!!
that's awesome!! did you do that all without taking the housing off the truck? Seems like a great idea to get done! I would agree with your statement that you have full turn left and right you got it assembled together correctly. How hard was this? thinking this may be something that's next on my list as well!
I did it all in situ, because there's one of the three mount bolts that's really difficult to get at. Plus the pitman shaft bushing feels tight, so I didn't need to replace it and therefore just left the box on the frame. My hand was just barely small enough to get into the box with rag/brush/grease gun.
Not really difficult, just messy. When I put it back together I tightened up the worm shaft bearings til there was no play and then a smidge more, they felt good. A smidge more and they felt tight and rough, so I backed off the second smidge and then tightened the lockring. Just a little preload and they felt pretty good. I think about as good as original 59 year old parts can feel, that is!
I didn't wind up having to adjust the over center preload, it came out just about perfect. I should still throw the inch/lb torque wrench on it just to verify, as I have small load torque wrenches for my bicycle shop. I think I'm pretty much there, tho.
The main thing I'm wondering though, is how to make the wheel point straight ahead at the middle of box travel. It's been off for as long as I've owned the bus, and even after I had the toe set. Caster angle was good at that time as was camber. It doesn't wear tires funny, and now I know that the box was and is correctly configured. Seems like what sets that steering wheel position is the relationship between the Pitman arm and the steering knuckle and the only way I could see to change that relationship would be to move the axle slightly forward or back. Or else cut and thread the drag link with a sleeve so you could alter its length that way.
To fix your steering wheel, find steering center (lock to lock), confirm the tires are pointing straight ahead, pull the steering wheel off the steering shaft and then put it back down on the splined shaft in the correct location.
Mike B
Mike Boteler
1956 Chevy 3100 Resto Rod 1952 Willys M38 Army Jeep 1983 Jeep CJ7 Laredo 1984 Jeep CJ7 +++++ Silver Spring, MD
@Mike B That's one way of solving the problem, but it won't change the fact that steering will be sloppy over center because the steering wheel is a quarter turn off, meaning any turn to the left will bring it past the tighter over-center portion of the steering box. And on this rig, it gets loose pretty quick.
So that's why I'm interested in doing it the right way-when the wheels are centered and bus is going straight, it should be right in the middle of the steering box over-center. There are plenty of "I'll just go ahead and pretend I didn't see that" things on my rig, but I'd really like the steering and braking to be 100 percent of what it can be.
The steering wheel re-clock is the last thing to do. You have to first get the geometry and gear correct and centered, no telling how many time that steering wheel has been off and re-clocked.
1957 Chevrolet 5700 LCF 283 SM420 2 speed rear, 1955 IH 300U T/A, 1978 Corvette 350 auto, 1978 Yamaha DT175, 1999 Harley Davidson Softail Fat Boy
There are marks from the factory for everything, well except the fine splined steering shaft slip joint above the lower U joint that I replaced. Here's my shiny new lower U joint and steering box, I also cleaned up the frame and leaf springs a bit and painted them.
