TheSamba.com :: View topic - how do you tell when a steering box is good

Wed Jul 02, 2008 8:44 pm

i have heard they go bad and need rebulit

how do you tell if its good?

Thu Jul 03, 2008 12:35 am

on the oval early ball sector type boxes most of the bad ones I see have worn out upper steering shaft ball bearings due to excessive driving with low gear oil from leaky seals, the worm gear and ball rarely wear out and have plenty of adjustment room, the bearings for the steering shaft worm gear always get worn and the box gets real stiff and chunky feeling, most people just replace the worm and sector type with newer worm and roller boxes from later cars, they are a direct bolt on and much smoother and tighter than the best condition worm and sector box, its pretty hard to tell the difference from looks alone underneath without taking off the inspection plate behind the spare wheel, I buy any old boxes I see at the swaps for $5 or $10 if they look nice assuming that all the upper bearings are bad, I hope to save enough good lower bearings to replace worn uppers on other boxes, the early ones do have casting dates which are a close match with the cars production date