Does the rebuild kit come with the input shaft seal?
Cruiserdan can get you the parts (assuming the lit has the seal). But unless someone has done a write up on how to replace the seal, you are on your own. Its not in the FSM and the seal is not shown in FSM. The balls are not in the FSM either, so its going to be hit or miss if you can get it back together. If you screw up there is no data on how to get it back together.
Yes, the Steering Gearbox Kit comes with the input shaft seal (see 1st image showing old seal and ball bearing)
In my case this was the seal that was leaking so I had to replace this seal among the others in the kit. The seal butts up against a flange in the housing so it has to be installed from the inside of the housing, therefore I saw no alternative but to remove the input shaft/worm gear completely and so had to repack the (qty 44) loose balls. The way I did this:
- clean out both male and female threads
- pack female threads with grease (hope it is compatible with Teflon etc). Just enough to fill the roots of the threads, see 2nd picture
- pack ball recirculating tube by inserting 1 ball at a time into the tube, do this 1st (the tube is shown running outside of the assembly see 3rd picture)
- begin inserting one ball at a time using a needle nose pliers. starting with the deepest ball and working your way around the helical path making sure each ball is seated deeply in the grease which prevents it from falling out of place (see 2nd picture again).
- carefully thread the shaft back in. I even coated the shaft lightly with steering fluid to help it glide over the balls (see 4th picture)
When I slid this assembly back into the gear box I sliced the new Teflon ring on a sharp edge and had to reuse the old one and guide it inside the edge using a screwdriver- wish I had that piston ring compression tool (?) that was mentioned earlier in the thread.
