77mustard40
SILVER Star
Good evening all. A little over five years ago I ditched the OEM manual steering box for a mini-truck box in my 77. At the time it was one of those mods that leaves you wondering why you didn’t do it sooner. My truck is no show princess but more of a fairly clean rig that gets driven regularly and gets wheeled hard a couple times a year. When I committed to the mini box set up I started collecting parts which took several months, once I had a good used steering box in hand I sent it over to San Angelo for West Texas to rebuild it. Unfortunately it was just a few month after the install that it developed a slow dripping leak. Just enough to put a couple drops under the truck a week. Over time a couple turned to a few until a couple of weeks ago when it started to puke pretty bad. My first thought was to pull it and send it to RedHead Gears but when I got the quote I decided to see how bad I could mess it up on my own. Sometimes I need to just pour myself into an a project I haven’t attempted just for the hell of it. I ordered a Gates rebuild kit off Rock Auto that set me back $30 and committed myself to at least trying to do this. There’s a first time for everything.
This weekend I started tearing down my steering and it was a terrible weekend here for garage time, high temps both days was north of 107F at my house. I debated pulling it without removing the fender but decided to open her up and clean up what I could while it was apart. Removing the fender and steering box was pretty straight forward. Tearing the box down was a little bit of a challenge. The adjustment screw had been adjusted down to where it was flush with the lock nut (I never adjusted the box) and I struggled breading it free. Ended up backing off the nut and screw as a unit a few turned and then dropped the whole box into the vise, torched the crap out of the nut and screw and finally got them to break free. It looked like a combo of painting the box after it was assembled along with Loctite on the treads. Once I got that separated the box came apart without too much difficulty. I’m praying I caught all the ball bearings that came out!
The heat shut me down since this is happening in the garage, so I will pick it up once the heat breaks later in the week.
This weekend I started tearing down my steering and it was a terrible weekend here for garage time, high temps both days was north of 107F at my house. I debated pulling it without removing the fender but decided to open her up and clean up what I could while it was apart. Removing the fender and steering box was pretty straight forward. Tearing the box down was a little bit of a challenge. The adjustment screw had been adjusted down to where it was flush with the lock nut (I never adjusted the box) and I struggled breading it free. Ended up backing off the nut and screw as a unit a few turned and then dropped the whole box into the vise, torched the crap out of the nut and screw and finally got them to break free. It looked like a combo of painting the box after it was assembled along with Loctite on the treads. Once I got that separated the box came apart without too much difficulty. I’m praying I caught all the ball bearings that came out!
The heat shut me down since this is happening in the garage, so I will pick it up once the heat breaks later in the week.