The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Steering box worm bearing

I am rebuilding the steering box of my 48 right now.

What is the right tool or tools to remove the worm bearing outer races from the housing and collar?
Any pics? My local Autozone might have them for loan.

The races look alright and I may just leave them, if they are too tricky or difficult to remove.

On the road again,

I guess this means you have the whole assembly out and on the bench. If you are replacing the bearings, common practice would be to replace the races (cups) too. I looked at a picture of the steering assembly. One cup is in the bottom of the tube housing, and the other is inside of a adjustable nut...does this sound right?

There is a easy way to pull the cups if you have a small wire feed welder, or even a stick welder. Run a bead around the inner circumference of the race and it will shrink and drop out.

If this isn't your cup of tea, there are probably two small recesses on the back side of the housing so you can reach in with a slide hammer with puller arm attached...wham, wham and out she comes.

Stuart

That's them - there is absolutely no room, recesses or 'overhang' to grab the races from underneath.

I guess I have to find somebody in town with a wire feed welder.
How can the races shrink, when you heat them up...?

I also will ask the machine shop who is reaming out the sector shaft bushings, if they know a removal method.

If its a big ordeal I might as well leave them in place, since they aren't damaged or visibly worn.
Just a shame since every other steering box part is brand new including the wrom and sector shafts and I will never have to go back inside again.

On the road again,

It sure seems like there should be some area betwix cup and seat that the engineers left to extract the race...I don't know.

When you weld a bead, the parent material is melted, and a molten glob of filler is melted and hopefully, mixed in with the parent material...when this mess cools, it shrinks, and of course the press fit no longer is there and, plop, out falls the race. It isn't heated, it has to be brought to a molten state with a welder of some sort.

This is the dreaded "warpage" you always hear about when welding anything..another word for 'shrink'.

If you are into the box that far, I wouldn't hesitate to recruit the machine shop to R&R both the cups and cones (bearings & races), then you have a whole new unit.

Stuart

Exactly - I was wondering the same thing - no room for extraction, believe me.
Unlike the wheel bearing races with the slots...

That's why I thought there was a special tool or trick.

I would only do the welding myself, if I had the tools and experience. The wrong guy can do more damage than good.

Glad the original races can be reused, just in case nobody comes up with a simple safe solution.

Thanks for your help though.

It seems there ought to be a recess or something to get behind it. Some have an expantion plug on the bottom like a freeze plug you can pull. If not I would leave them alone. They dont go around very fast & as long as there is lubricant there they will last forever.

Definetly no recesses for removal - hence my post.

You can remove the expansion plug, but the casting of the housing still provides no room for removal.

I'm lucky that the races can be reused and I already decided to move on to the next steps.

Thanks everybody for the thoughts.
If somebody has done this before and figured out an easy solution, please post it for future reference.

This problem made no sense. After some digging, it appears that the race for the lower worm shaft bearing is actually a machined in piece of the worm bearing adjuster...it isn't a separate race that can be replaced.

If you needed to replace a damaged race, you would replace the entire adjuster.

I actually think this has been talked about here before. I think this is how it works.

Stuart

Not on my 1948 passenger steering box, Atomarc.
Where did you get your info and data from?

Check the shop manual for that year.
It has an exploded view of the entire steering box and talks about inspecting and replacing the races when worn - just fails to show or mention how...!

The races for this type steering box can actually be purchased separately by various vendors.

I only asked on this forum, after checking with the chevy talk car forum first, with no solution.
I was hoping somebody on this forum has done this before on a 1940-48 car.

Your welding/shrinking tip was the only solution anybody has come up with so far.
It's a great tip for somebody with the right tools and experience.

I do belief, the only way to remove these races, is by destroying them.
Not worth the risk of cracking the casting in my case, since they are not worn.

On the road again,

I found a thread discussing this subject on another site. My assumption was that your rig was a '48 pickup...you know what they say about assumptions.

The information on the other site pertained to pickups, '48 to '54.

EDIT. The '48 coupe is shown as plain as day in your profile...I need to clean my glasses.

Stuart

Mine is machined as atomarc mentions. Lucky for me it was in good enough shape to not worry about.
Below is a picture from my 1949 passenger manual,
is this what you are talking about "On the road again" or am I totally out of the loop?
Adjuster Cup

Could this strange disparity be because the truck uses a Saginaw Recirculating Ball box and the car uses a roller sector type..or does anyone give a hoot besides STOO!

Stuart

Yes, littlebuddie - great picture - exactly what I was looking for helping me with the collar bearing race.
I saw a tool like that at Autozone and was thinking of giving it a try.
The car shop manual has no such description anywhere.

That would take care of the collar, but it's so weird how the steering box for cars allows no access, even when taking out the expansion plug.
The casting of the housing is right up against the bearing race and goes over the edge by 1/8" so that even that tool cannot grap it at it's inside....

I guess I take a photo of it after all, since a pic can say more than 1000 words....


...there we go:

Steering box housing inside

Steering box collar


You can see, even if the brass expansion plug is removed there is still 1/8" housing casting with smaller diameter.

And on the collar you can see the casting coming right up to the bearing race inner edge with no recesses, but there is about a 1/32" overhang which will be enough for the puller expander to work.

At least I can remove the collar race now, if the Autozone tool is large enough...THANK YOU!

Check this out:

Steering Bushing Removal
Uh oh, nevermind. I just remembered that yours is a blind seat with no access :rolleyes:

You could drill a hole under it & punch it out. Then fill the hole with RTV or J.B. weld.

Actually, if I look at my collar - it doesn't have a large adjuster nut surface like in your link and I can't use that tool, unless I fabricate a plate with a large threaded hole that provides a surface for the tool to work.

Amazing - at least I can't say I didn't try to figure this one out.

I just leave them things inside as is and invest my time into the next task....

I also thought of drilling and grinding, but would only do so if the races would be damaged and I HAVE to go that route.

Thanks again.

I'll bet you'll be ok as is. What lube are you going to fill it with? There are many many threads on steering gear lube on this website. I filled mine with a 50/50 mix of John Deere 85/140W gear oil and NAPA bearing grease. It won't leak for another 60 years.

I tried that mix but the thinner oil eventually separates from the grease inside the box.
You only notice that if you have weak seals.

I got Penrite Steering Lube from these guys ... http://restorationstuff.com/