Good Afternoon.
I have attached two pictures of my steering gear question. There is significant wear on the two teeth. The rebuild kits I have seen do not include the larger machined details. I do not think I want to grind the teeth or polish or file them. Do I need to do any thing with this gear at all? Just put it back together? Are there machined details for this steering gear?
I am open to suggestions and sources for rebuild parts.
thank you,
ken
The sun is out... so I need to rack leaves.

 

Contact Gary at GTR1999. He knows his stuff with regards to steering boxes and rear differentials. Jerry

 

Are the spots rough or burnished smooth?

 

Hard to tell how deep that is. If it's only a few thou I'd polish it out and put it back together.

 

The wear marks are a little rough. Not enough to make you bleed. The deepest mark is about. 010 inches deep. The others are not as deep.
There are two tight spots while rotating the input shaft.

 

The wear on the teeth is important, if they are worn from old acidic grease sludge check both the sector and worm teeth. I have seen so many lousy rebuilt boxes where the gears are bad the rebuilders tried filling in the wear, welding, and the best one-still done today and sold by many- flipping the worm upside down. All are lousy practices to avoid replacing the gears as needed. One reason for the past 10+ years aftermarket boxes have become popular is that some of the rebuilt boxes sold were worse then what they replaced.

Now I am not saying that is what you have and a lot depends on what you want to achieve. A common type rebuilt box or one better then new? You will need more then a common rebuild kit to get the best results. You need a 0-30 in/lb dial Tw to dial them in and check your setup. A beam wrench is no where close enough to do it. A 010" wear groove is a mile.

If the gears are still good you will have a steady preload with new bearings. If you see it is choppy, jumping and couple in/lb the worm ball screw is no good. Now I have read other write ups online, on NCRS, and elsewhere where they say 1-2 in/lb on the preload is ok. Again it depends on what you want. I can say when I swap out a choppy worm with one of the nos ones I have then I can set the preload exactly where I want it to be and it stays there.

Next you have to understand the difference between true center and high lash and know how to set the arm to the correct position. I could go into more detail but I have wrote about this so many times I am getting tired of repeating myself so to answer your question. Get the preload steady, then check the lash and go lock to lock, the dial should be steady and climb to the highest reading at or near the true center and back down to the preload off center. If you find that then your gears are good, if not there is a problem. The action should be smooth and steady, if it binds part way through- it's not right. Now you can ignore that and still use it and join the many who sell them at that level.

Good luck, if you do it right it will outperform a new box every day of the week.

 

Thanks for the info.
I do not want to rebuild my gear box, because I need new hard details not just bearings and seals. I am going to get a rebuilt box. I will check all of the items you said to check.
Thank you,
ken

 

my only suggestion is to check any rebuilt box very very carefully. Please trust me on this. There is a reason why some boxes cost under $200-$300 and there is a huge reason why rack and pinion setups and Jeep boxes have become popular the past 15 years.