The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 54 Steering Box Rebuild

While rebuilding my 1954 manual steering box I ran into a few problems. I thought I would relay what I ended doing to over come these problems. I bought a steering box rebuild kit from ChevyDuty and it came with the gaskets, bushings, shims, bearings, and pitman shaft adjuster screw. The hardest part of rebuilding this steering box was the bushing replacement. The bushing removal from the main body of the box is easy, since you only need to drive it out with a bearing/bushing installation tool or an appropriate size deep socket. The bushing in the pitman shaft cover is difficult, since it is installed into pitman shaft cover and you cannot simply drive it out. If the bushing is of split design you can use a punch to collapse the bushing at the seem and then work it out with some plyers. I actually taped a roll of masking tape to the bottom of my jigsaw to limit its depth of cut into the cover and carefully cut through the bearing and then collapse/removed the bushing as stated above. The new bushing installed into the main body just fine, but the bushing for the pitman shaft cover looked like it hit something at the bottom of the bore and got deformed inward at the very bottom. I removed this bushing and discovered that there was a ridge at the bottom of the bore and the bushing that should have been installed in the cover should have been 1/4" shorter. The two bushings in the rebuild kit were the same size, so I never thought much about until I ran into this problem. When I removed the old bushing from the pitman cover I bent the crap out of it and when I finally got it out I just tossed it, so I never noticed it was a 1/4" shorter than the other one I removed. Luckily the other one I removed from the body of the box was still in good shape, so I reinstalled it in the Pitmanshaft cover till it bottom on the ridge 1/4" above the bottom of the bore. Then I cut the 1/4" inch sticking above the surface w/ a die grinder and then dressed the top edge w/ a file and sandpaper. The new bushings need to be reamed, so that the pitman shaft will fit into them. I thought this would be a piece of cake, since I had a set of reamers. Problem was the bushing needed to be reamed to 1-1/8" and my reamers only went up to 1-1/16". The second problem that you will encounter even if you do have the right size reamer for the job, is that you can't ream the bushing in the pitman shaft cover, since it is a blind hole and the reamer needs to be able to go completely through the hole being reamed. What I ended up doing instead of reaming the bushings is I used a brake cylinder hone attached to my drill to hone them into shape. After that I was home free and it all went back together nicely. Just wanted to give you folks a heads up just in case a steering box rebuild is in your future.

Jim

Cujo8,
as far as I can remember, you are the first one to report on making it successfully through the process. Most others found another cover and called it a day!

I am surprised that a brake hone can actually remove metal, even if it is just brass.

Jim,
Whenever a brushing replacemnt is required on my 53 year old truck, it's always the mouintain in the job. Metal just fuses together after all those years. Case in point: the king pin bushings took 20 tons of press before they began to groan. Even the biggest BFH won't touch that.
I'm hoping that a bushing replacement might not be necessary. If lack of play of the pitman arm has anything to say about it; i probably won't. Did you have much wiggle in your before the tear down?
And are you going to do anything with the steering column inards?
-jeff

Jeff, There was a little play in the box before I rebuilt it and since I was doing a frame off and I had rebuilt the rest of the steering components I decided to rebuild the steering box. I am glad I did, since the guy I bought the truck from had sandblasted the entire truck prior to painting it and when I removed the steering shaft from the steering box I found the column full of sand that would have gotton past the bearing into the box over time and destroyed it. I do plan on changing the upper steering mast bearing, because it seems to have some side to side play. When looking for a replacement mast bearing I found the ones for my truck were quite expensive and the picture of the part did not exactly match the one I had. The one I had seemed to match the ones that were used in car applications and they are 1/3 of the price of the truck ones. Then I remembered that my 54 GMC originaly had a 228 w/ a hydromatic transmission when it came out of the factory. Some where along the way it was changed over to a Chevy 261 and SM420 4-spd transmission. So I am wondering if the steering box and column are original to my truck, since it would have had a column shifter and mine does not. Could the PO have removed the column shifter parts and still be able retain the orginal steering column or do you think he replaced the steering column and box all together?

Jim,
I hope you are asking yourself those last two questions. I'm not the one to ask since anything and everything i'm learning in this process of restoration is all new with absolutely noy prior experience.
How would you describe the play you mentioned in the geared shaft between the two bushings? Very noticeable? Can feel something? Or, I think there might be something, but i'm not really sure?
-jeff

The two bushings are used on the pitman shaft, so the play can only be seen where the pitman shaft comes out of the box where the pitman arm attaches. The proper bushing fit will prevent any side to side or up and down movement. I would try moving the pitman shaft and look for movement of the pitman shaft. You should make sure you go through the steering box adjustment process as outlined in the manual, before checking for excessive play in your steering box. Are you having issues with sloppy steering with your truck?

I used a brake cylinder hone to ream the bushings when I rebuilt a Willys steering box, and it held up great. You should be able to do the same with that box.

So, does that mean the rebuild kit from Chevy Duty doesn't quite work? What about kits from other part vendors? The steering box in my '54 1/2 ton could stand to be rebuilt and I was hoping it wouldn't be too much of a hassle.

The only modification I did to the kit, was shorten one of the pitman shaft bushings. I believe you will have to ream or hone the bushings to fit regardless of where you buy the kit. In the shop manual they say that you need to ream the bushings when you replace them. In fact they actually recommend you replace the whole pitman shaft side cover that all ready has a reamed bushing installed rather than installing a new bushing in the side cover, since it is so difficult. These days you are not probably going find anyone selling these side covers with new bushings installed, so that option is out.