i have just installed a n.o.s. steering box AND a n.o.s. psv. my problem ? i have more play than before!!! does the new steering box need adjustment? i filled with correct fluid and properly adjusted the psv. what gives?

 

Often rebuilt steering boxes only replace bearings and seals. That is not the problem. The bushings in the housing for the pitman arm are the problem. A used box can have about .006 play in these bushing, new bushings brings it down to about .003. You need .001 and that only comes with hand made custom fit bushings.
Gary would rebuild your old box to brand new spec but doing just that.
End play is also critical.

 

its not a used box! its a N.O.S. BOX. NEW OLD STOCK. its a box that never made the assembly line and has sat on a shelf since forever. my question was do these n.o.s. boxes have to be adjusted. i dont want to ruin a new 500$ steering box. thanks for reply

 

Hey Norval,

It sounds like since I was away people have finally figured out the recipe huh? I got one of the Zip rebuilt boxes and I have that same sloppy steering I always have. I *KNOW* it has to be the darn box or the control valve (which was also replaced, but is leaking again - darn cheap rebuilds). . . How much does Gary charge and do you have his contact info? Can we get kits to do it ourselves?

-dath

 

I have to agree that you would expect that a N.O.S. gear shouldn't need to be adjusted (just because it sat on a shelf for 25+ years.)

However, maybe it was manufactured on a Monday or Friday.

The first thing that I would check are the two adjustments that can be made on a Saginaw gear. The Chevrolet shop manual describes how to check and make the adjustments with the gear on a bench withan inch-lb torque wrench. If the gear is in the car, you might try the following:

I have a paper that describes how to adjust a Corvette gear - in car. Be sure to follow the caution on page 2, Checking Settings In A Brand New Gear.

http://www.corvettefaq.com/c3/GearAd...-Rev02AU05.doc

Norval has some very good suggestions with respect to the Saginaw manual gear. I would think that for the majority of applications, fine tuning the clearance between the support bushing and the pitman (sector) shaft should not be needed. I think that you should first make sure that the worm shaft and sector shaft adjustments are in the ball park.

But if you have access to equipment that could hone a custom installed bushing to within 0.001 of the pitman shaft diameter, it might give you that last bit of precision that you might want.

BTW, if you look closely at the gear casting, do you see a stylized "Road S" logo cast on the gear housing. It was Saginaw Steering Gear's trademark. That is one way to tell that it was originally manufactured by Saginaw. When manual steering volumes dropped to very low numbers, Saginaw sold off the business in the middle 1980s. The company that bought the business made the gears to Saginaw drawings, but they couldn't have the "Road S" cast on the gear housings. I'm just curious.

Jim

 

all i know is that i can adjust the worm gear with the screw and lock nut on top of the box whats the proper way? and its a power assist if that makes a difference. and it is already in the car

 

redc3 - Grab the document that Jim linked to. He is the forum expert on C3 steering. The document should explain how to make all settings.

-dath

 

As my paper indicates, there are TWO adjustments that can be made to the Corvette gear. The FIRST adjustment should be to the thrust bearings on the input (worm) shaft. The SECOND is to the mesh of the sector (pitman) shaft teeth to the ball nut inside the gear.

The play in the input shaft thrust bearings can be adjusted by rotating the large nut that sorrounds the input shaft. If the input shaft bearings are not adjusted correctly, you will always have some lash that you can feel in the gear.

The mesh of the pitman shaft teeth to the ball nut inside the gear is controlled by the adjusting the screw and locknut on the side cover.

Just follow the guidelines in the paper.

Jim

 

Jim,

Thanks for the help! I am going to attempt to adjust my box a little. My vette doesn't steer too bad, but I think it could be better. My vette mechanic merely says "hey its no Porsche!". Not much help.

Do you think a Flaming River box would be better or just more of the same? Are there tolerances worth the $. I actually don't think my box is bad, the car only has 46k on it.

carbster

 

I recently bought a new steering box from my local Chevy dealer. I checked all of its settings and it was set exactly per factory specs. I was surprised that Chevy stills sells new boxes. My steering box had damaged ball races so it couldn't be rebuilt to like new performance - after over 200,000 miles it gave all it had to give!!

I did find that the "high point" on center relationship was enough different than the original box so I needed to get special length tie rods to keep the box on center when aligned. Perhaps your box had the same issue which would make it looser than it should be since it would be well off "high point" in the straight ahead position.