July 1958 Steering box: Disassemble, clean, explained

[dakdak]

Good post. Keep us updated.
_________________
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth - persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

JFK

[OLDveedubs]

Hello all,

I got bored while waiting for the pan to come back from media blasting. This an original 1959 car (built September 1958) and steering box (dated July 19, 1958), so I wanted to keep it that way. A lot of threads here suggest getting a new one, scraping the old one, buying reconditioned, that parts can't be had, etc etc. With some research I've found most of what I needed.

Some of the problems with reconditioning earlier boxes:

1) Lack of the 2 rubber seals
2) Lack of 2 thrust bearings
3) No top cover gasket produced

Bentley explains it well. I'd suggest getting a screw driver in the adjustment bolt slot after you take the bolt out to allow some room for the worm gear/thrust bearing to come out. Also, the cap and outer thrust bearing came out very easily with some light taps on an inverted socket and extension...no extreme effort required. Some sources have been posted here for the supplies. I'll try to consolidate what I've found for others in the future.

Below is the exploded view of all the parts.

From left to right, top to bottom.
Spring w/ pin
Sector shaft
Sector
Top cover plate w/ 19mm adjusting screw/nut, 19mm fill port, and 4 13mm (?) bolts w/ wavy washers
Paper gasket (1mm thick)
Adjusting bolt/nut

From left to right,
Bearing (curved side facing out)
Worm gear
Bearing (curved side facing out)
Collar
All the way at the end is a black seal. No markings. This actually goes further onto the shaft, just to the left of the splines on the right side of this picture. It nests inside the collar. Size: 24mm outside, 16mm inside, 8mm tall. Available from Chicago Rawhide, in 24x16x7. According to my local bearing supply house, they no longer use the part numbers listed on other threads for the metric stuff.

Status VW (in the UK) here also offers the part if you can't find it locally. There may also be some guys on TheSamba offering some, check the classifieds.

Cap for end of worm gear
Bottom of steering box.
Rubber seal for bottom of sector shaft
Size: 28x40x7mm. Available from Chicago Rawhide or Status VW here.



I have yet to source a place for the bearings, bearing supply guy looked at me like I had three heads. He said the curved part was what made them hard to find. But mine appear to be serviceable.

So basically, what I'm getting at here is that although it may be easier to buy a new one w/ a new pitman arm, if you want to go original with a little bit of effort and elbow grease you can make your quality German parts last that much longer.

The box is off to media blast. Will have the seals next week and researching some black gasket material. Haven't decided if I'm going to run 90w oil or grease. Will post updates when finished!
_________________
-Ryan
Restoration Updates
www.my59bug.com
"Perfection through inspection."