manual steering gear box - oil or grease?

[Steamer]

You gotta have a lotta balls to rebuild a steering box like that.

And stupidity lol.
I never read the warning in the manual “Do Not Do That” till after the fact. It was some time after crawling around on the shop floor for a considerable amount of time searching for dropped balls that I finally read the instructions and that warning. During many attempts at re-assembly I realized how bad I screwed up and considered giving up and just start doing my planned someday Saginaw conversion. But with persistence and a lotta luck I finally got it. One good thing that came out my blunder was, I got to understand the pathway that the balls travel and recirculate which I found fascinating. And figuring that out I thought was like solving the Rubik’s cube.

 

[77mustard40]

I've done a mini-truck box but not a manual box, those little fawkers are a PITA. Definitely place the box in a large bin if your are fully disassembling, sure helps to keep everything self contained. Somehow I figured out a way to rotate them all back into place, a few dabs of moly grease didn't hurt on the re-assembly.

 

[red66toy]

Maybe a good alternative to 90wt or full grease is just a heavier oil? Like 200wt as @emac suggested.
I understand that ideally all our boxes would hold 90wt but they are old at this point and unless the metal shafts and the seals are fresh, they are going to leak 90wt sooner and sooner. So maybe heavier is the answer

 

[South Texas 97]

I filled mine with grease, and as it is so close to the headers, there is some leaking of the grease (presumably as it gets hot and less viscous)

It need a rebuild for sure. This may be one thing I take to a specialist shop to rebuild, if only to not have to deal with the pitman arm.

 

[77mustard40]

I filled mine with grease, and as it is so close to the headers, there is some leaking of the grease (presumably as it gets hot and less viscous)

It need a rebuild for sure. This may be one thing I take to a specialist shop to rebuild, if only to not have to deal with the pitman arm.

Get yourself a good pitman arm puller, I know its a specialty tool but I've used mine a couple of times now and coupled with a 1/2 drive Milwaukee pulling the arm is a one minute job.

 

[CruisinGA]

This is a good style of puller, the two jaw will break in many cases. SnapOn has a similar one for much higher price.

 

[Sky King]

A lot of classic and older trucks with manual boxes leak a bit. What I found is a lot of people including myself now use a product from John Deere called corn head grease, its made for their implements but the properties of it work excellent in steering boxes and I have been using it in all my old trucks for some time now.

 

[70 FJ40]

Back to tech, I do not think Toyota’s decision to require gear oil instead of grease was an arbitrary one. Gear oil is definitely a superior choice for lubricating the the tooth-to-tooth interface of the worm gear and sector shaft. Inadequate lubrication is the second most common cause of failure of steering box components.

Insufficient maintenance/ adjustment is the first.

Can you educate me on the proper way to adjust a manual steering box?