TedH

My steering box is the original 124k miler and is leaking/oozing (melted) grease. I suspect the pace of the leakage is increasing and due to the proximity of my left header (it is within 1-2").

Anybody have a steering box that doesn't ooze grease? Anybody that has solved this problem by rebuilding with 'hi temp' grease? I am advised by Van Steel they can rebuild with high temp grease.

Is this more a problem with bad seals in the steering box than due to header heat/proximity? I'm going to start ripping once I'm back in FL.

:seeya

Jim Shea

Depending how close the headers come to the pitman seal area and/or the input shaft seal area, you could be seeing serious hardening of the lip seals themselves from the heat. Then the grease would tend to leak out because the seal lip could no longer follow the shaft when it was deflecting due to steering loads.

BTW, my 1975 Vert is 28 years old. It doesn't have many miles but the grease in the manual gear is also 28 years old. Recently, I probed down through one of the side cover bolt holes with a phillips screw driver. The grease was still light yellow and waxy. I pushed around a bit to help redistribute the grease inside the gear. I am pretty confident that since my gear really hasn't seen any serious heat for any length of time; my grease, and seals are probably good for a lot more time.

TedH

Are you running headers or exhaust manifolds?

Jim Shea

I have the stock "ram horn" manifolds. It is still time and temperature that gets to the seals and greases.

One other thing, make sure that you don't overfill your manual gear with too much grease. You need some air volume inside the gear to allow for expansion of the grease when things get hot underhood. The pressure buildup inside the gear has been known to actually blow the seals right out of the housing if it is filled 100% with grease.

adam

Ted; You know you can add some grease in the thing if you remove
one of the cover screws... Granted the grease won't be packed
down in there, but I doubt you are empty. It does take a while to
get the thing off, pull, unscrew, turn, lift, turn, bend, bend, turn, etc.

Who said to rebuild it with new bushings too if you do? Norval? But they
really liked the results due to the .001 deflection from the new bushings
vs the deflection with the existing bushings...

Steve Straus

Mine's about 1/8" from the box. This picture was taken before I had the headers coated.

My box doesn't leak as far as I know, but it's been pretty much shot since I've owned the car, so it's getting the full steeroids treatment soon.

Steve Straus

Did you decide what you are going to do Ted?

TedH

Steve,

I'll be pulling the steering box and other power sterring accessories from the engine bay a short time after I return to Tampa for rebuilding by Van Steel. I may actually have them do the removal, rebuild and re-install depending on the price.

Thanks for all of the good input folks! :seeya

flynhi

See the Vette Improvement Program section on steering box in the Vettefaqs archives for info on adjustment and on adding a lube point to the box.