Quality of rebuilt early steering boxes

[ccpalmer]

Hello -

I recently bought a rebuilt steering box for my '71 and curious about others who have purchased rebuild boxes. Mine came from an online vendor who said it was a Bus Boys rebuild. No one else seemed to have a rebuilt box to ship. Bus Boys, Wolfgang, and more all said they were out of rebuildable cores.

My new box came and right away I could feel a degree or two of play in the box. That's play from input shaft to output shaft, not axial or rotational play in the output shaft. Of course, then when I installed the box (the rest of my front end is new) I still have 1/2" play in the steering wheel.

So I'm curious how others have felt about their rebuilt steering box. I know Bentley says 1/2" of steering wheel play is spec but I am still a little disappointed...


Thanks!
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'71 Westy

[aryue]

My rebuilt steering box from Bus Boys was installed in 2006. No real issues, yet.

After 6 years and 30K, plus miles - it dribbles a bit of gear oil from the seal. It took less than a 60cc syringe full of 90W to top in March. 30 to 40cc leakage in that time isn't too bad.

I hope yours works out as well.

- Andrew in Austin, TX -
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OldandSlow - but still chuggin.
http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~yue/VW/VWBus.html

[ccpalmer]

bump - anyone else buy a rebuilt early box?
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'71 Westy

[Desertbusman]

[ccpalmer]

[SGKent]

since this is a rebuilt box I would call the vendor and discuss it with them. There should be almost no freeplay at center in the box. Off to each side there is play. That is by design to keep you from crashing when your steering locks if it was loose in the center and tighter to the outsides. In the 20's steering boxes were made with even play all through. Then as they wore the center would get loose and someone would adjust them to where the center was respectable. That was fine until someone made a really hard turn one day and got into an unworn part of the gear where it would be tighter and the gearbox would lock in the turn with predictable results.

Also the early boxes use a peg design that is not in the later boxes. Read up again on the early box in Bentley.

[ccpalmer]

Good idea to call Bus Boys and see what they say. I was curious to hear what others have to say about their rebuilt boxes... surprised there aren't more reports. With all the talk about crosswinds and semis I would think more people would have replaced their boxes...?

I did go look at things again underneath. I did find that my steering box was not perfectly centered. Guess my input shaft dust cover/center pointer moved a bit during installation. After fixing that my steering tightened a tiny bit but not much. Still seem to have 1/2" play at all points on my box. Maybe 3/8" at the centerpoint.

Also removed 2.5oz fluid from my box - a baby snot sucker worked great!

I'll be taking my old box apart soon to see what's inside for myself.
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'71 Westy

[Kirk]

I'm suprised that no one sells a kit to rebuild them yourself. Seems fairly simple, at least the replacing the seals and such.
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MAKE FORUMS GREAT AGAIN

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[aryue]

[Desertbusman]

[ccpalmer]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

[ccpalmer]

[raygreenwood]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

as promised


you can see the lower cover to the right, but a plain old washer was what the "rebuilt" steering box used to take up the slop

more rebuilt goodness

you can see the arm was all galled up. this end has no bushing. the housing was just as bad

i will admit, i washed off all the paint, popped it open saw what a joke it was and it did sit under a bench for a while. some of the rust on the guts was there, and some is the result of hiding under a bench


i would like to also point out that the bearings on the worm were each missing 1 ball. awesome!
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[Desertbusman]

That's a beauty Skills Do you know who rebuilt it?

Years ago here we talked about the output shaft wear like your picture shows and the corresponding housing snout bore wear. The shaft could be precision ground to a good new surface. The housing could be bored out and a sleeve put in. Some precision machine work and that portion would be wonderful. From what I concluded it's the shaft to snout slop that causes the clank. And only a couple thousandths wear on the shaft and housing bore will do it.

I told Chris about the rebuilt box we put in the gals bus that was a good one. But forgot to mention how that box came about. We bought a rebuilt from CIP and it looked nice with new paint, Put it in (set it all up the right way), headed out, made a turn from the drive way and the box locked up. As solid as if it had been welded up. If it hadn't locked up then it might have waited to kill us on the highway. CIP said it must have been installed wrong. That was BS and I know box internal workings, parts, adjustments and proper steering setup. CIP said send it back so they could inspect it but I wanted to pull the cover and really see what was majorly screwed up. It took forever to get it from them in the first place and it was the gals driver so we needed a working steering box. They said if I even touched it the warantee would be voided. So after at least 2 weeks of lies, bs, and excuses from various people at CIP we finally got another one from another rebuilder. No way in hell will I do business with CIP again, They are crooks. And I've probably posted quite a few times in the years since about killer steering boxes and repainted junkyard junk boxes sold as rebuilts.
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71 Superbug
71 Westy

[skills@eurocarsplus]

i have no idea who hacked er....rebuilt it. it came with a bus i bought for parts. if i remember correctly, it was in a generic white box (like a brake caliper would come in) no markings that you would expect, like a date code or a "CORE MUST BE RETURNED IN THIS BOX" tag

it was painted up real purdy. i 'bench tested' the box, and could feel play right off the bat, so i broke into it. parts washer and carb clean sent the paint screaming off of it like no ones business.

i about threw up when i opened it and saw that washer under the worm gear. my first thought was you hack job motherfucker....then i saw the top and bottom bearings missing 1 ball each.

having thought long and hard about the wear on the peg, i would almost bet it would polish off (at least in my box) and same for the housing. if you look on the peg, there are centering points which would allow you to center it in a lathe. boring the body wouldn't be too hard, but finding a bushing may be a challenge.

now the washer they stuffed under the peg was 1/16th. that leads me to believe 1 of 2 things. 1) the peg shrunk or 2) the bearings and races were shot.

honestly, i think a bus with a mild case of the 'pop pop's' could be solved by adjusting the pin on the peg to sit a little deeper in the worm. i should try and see if my local bearing house can supply me with the stuff to fool around with this old box
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[SGKent]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

[SGKent]

yes - the peg is supposed to spin. It is replaceable however I could not locate a nos part for you. It is 211 415 223 B for an early bay.