How difficult is it to replace a steering box?

[87sc302]

I have found that torque is good but a good hammer and piece of pipe sure help.
My dad was 5-5 and about 125 lbs and his saying was" leverage and impact (shock)" always work.

[Teddyzee]

I bought a used box including a Pitman arm Made things very easy!

I probably mentioned that earlier... Of course, I did that after my puller explained to me that the arm was NOT coming off...

[cgrey8]

Well got a big 1 1/4" wrench...too small. So it must be a 1 3/8" bolt. Back to Autozone tomorrow to swap wrenches.

Nothing's ever simple.

[gorgo]

i just so happen to had to replace my box last week and the nut on my 93 pittman arm is a 34mm. but i couldnt get a scoket on it because of the pumkin was in the way. used a really large cresent and a breaker bar. i broke 2 pullers just to get the arm off the box. not counting the whole day beating on the tie rod end to get it off.

[cgrey8]

I ended up finding a 33mm fits perfect. I have a 34mm, but that fits with a fair amount of slop.

It is discouraging that there are others that have broken pullers and still didn't get the arm off.

[cgrey8]

The 33mm socket and a breaker bar got the nut off.

And as prophesied, the pitman arm is stuck and isn't coming off even with lots of big mallet banging. So I've decided to cheat and cut the shaft off the steering box and then use the press to push the shaft piece out of the pitman arm.

But getting the drag (center) link out of the pitman required additional banging. But the banging required to release the link from the pitman crushed the nut and the end of the stud. I purposely left the nut on the stud in hopes it would protect the stud. It didn't. So when I tried to take the nut off the now-crushed stud, the stud just spins. So unless there's a creative way to get the stud to stay still, I'll have the angle grinder cutting that stud off while I'm cutting the steering box.

And while I'm at it, I might as well replace the other 3 tie rod parts as well. They are all original and while they are amazingly in great condition for 339kmiles, the rubber boots are cracking and brittle. So I don't feel too bad about spending money to replace them. But I'm NOT spending $100 for that piece of damn cast iron called a pitman arm. THAT is getting reused one way or another. All 4 tie rod steering components together cost less than that damn pitman does.

[MalcolmV8]

Turning into one of those from hell jobs for you. Hope it works out.

[cgrey8]

No, it's turning into exactly what I expected it would be.

[Teddyzee]

"no problem" we said... Oops!

[plowboy34]

Yeah TeddyZee I agree.....Don't know what's up but the boy's did come right off. I hate it when jobs turn into this Chris....sorry but I didn't just try to mislead you....from what everyone else say's I guess I got lucky

[MalcolmV8]

Yeah TeddyZee I agree.....Don't know what's up but the boy's did come right off. I hate it when jobs turn into this Chris....sorry but I didn't just try to mislead you....from what everyone else say's I guess I got lucky

I must have gotten lucky too. I had to put a little muscle in it but was a piece of cake compare to what Chris is having to do.

[cgrey8]

Well, tonight things went better. Short story is I didn't have to cut anything. Long story...

I lucked into figuring out how to get the center stud of the drag link to quit spinning so I could get the nut off. Turn the steering wheel to load up some tension. That put enough friction on the stud to keep it from spinning so I could get the nut off. Once it was out of the way, the box could drop out. And with it on the bench, I held the box in the vise and put the puller on it one last time. I broke one end of a puller arm so I flipped the arms around. The other ends of the arms were noticeably thicker. I figured if I break the big side, that is just a good excuse to get a better puller. Amazingly I was able to load it up enough with a breaker bar that the pitman came off. Phew....

After a good hour of cleaning up the area around where the box was, cleaning the hoses, cleaning the bolts, etc etc etc, the new box got put back in. So while I could've buttoned everything up with all the parts I have, I talked myself out of it and am going to ahead and put all new tie rods and links on while it is so convenient to do so. If one went bad a year from now, I'd hate myself for not doing it now when they are easy to do.

So...tomorrow the replacement L&L mounts come in, I get all the tie rods, and things should be good to go to put everything back together.

[cgrey8]

All the parts came in yesterday. I picked them up yesterday afternoon and got all the old tie rods pulled and all the new tie rods installed. I was a little disappointed that the replacement inner tie rods don't use sealed "balloon" pockets for the grease. They just use those rubber cups that cover the swivel stud. So I'm not sure that replacing the stock parts with these is necessarily an improvement. I just can't imagine these lasting nearly 350kmiles the way the stock parts did. But they do have a lifetime warranty so if they go bad, I get them replaced. It was nice to feel how tight the steering wheel is now. The old steering box was developing a bit of play.

Another thing I decided to do was install a PS fluid filter. Looking down into the reservoir, I can see all kinds of particulate down in there. Now that I have a brand new box, maybe it'll stay tighter if the pump is feeding it cleaner fluid. It was only $10 so it wasn't a hard thing to talk myself into. Now if I can just clean out the reservoir of the crap that's in there now.

[MalcolmV8]

Another thing I decided to do was install a PS fluid filter. Looking down into the reservoir, I can see all kinds of particulate down in there. Now that I have a brand new box, maybe it'll stay tighter if the pump is feeding it cleaner fluid. It was only $10 so it wasn't a hard thing to talk myself into. Now if I can just clean out the reservoir of the crap that's in there now.

I'd thought about that myself but really your pump lasted three hundred and fifty thousand miles. Seems completely unnecessary and just more maintenance you'd have to keep up on. I've heard of people who install a filter there and forget about it and eventually have a PS hose pop off from to much pressure. Presumably the bypass valve takes a lot more pressure to open than what the PS system was made to handle.

[cgrey8]

I'd gone through at least 2 PS pumps when the truck was still a V6. The V8 pump is still the same one that came with the junkyard motor. I don't know if it was original or if it'd been replaced. The Explorer had 127kmiles on it when the 302 was pulled. I put another 70kmiles on it with no problems from the PS pump. And of course, the steering box lasted 339kmiles.

Regardless, your argument has merit. How necessary is it really? The only reason I even knew about the PS fluid filter is because the gear box paperwork mentioned that I should use one. It didn't say specifically that I HAD to use one or the warranty was voided, but it sort of insinuated that. Although I've never known AutoZone to be sticklers on their return policy. Everything I've ever returned under warranty has been swapped out without question.