Time for some compromising

I mentioned rebuilding a steering box core I had bought off of ebay.

This was a project I took on several years ago. The Ford manual I used didn’t go into much detail. It was basically take it apart, clean it, replace these parts and reassemble. You get what you get when you’re finished.

I did not have any pictures of that work. I didn’t even think about doing that when I was rebuilding the thing.

The gear box in question was one of the quick ratio type. In this case, that would be 16:1.

A year after rebuilding the steering box, I found an article on a website Stangersite.net? This guy made a pretty comprehensive article on the proper way to rebuild and check the Ford steering gear box. This is the information you would expect to find in the Ford overhaul manual but it’s not even mentioned in the 1969 Ford manual set I have.

I had plans to take the steering box back out of the car before the Cammer goes in and rebuild it again using the information from Stangersite. My rough rebuild had too much play in the steering and grease was oozing out from the input shaft.

I’m sure the second time around with the proper documentation would be the charm. In the Stangersite info, the guy really stressed the possibility of worn parts. I didn’t see anything over obvious the first time around but it’s possible I missed something. What if I get back into this thing and I need to replace some major parts? I did buy it as a core on ebay after all.

Now, I know this may come as a surprise but not all of the sellers on ebay are the most up standing citizens. Some may bend the truth a bit. Others are clueless as to what they’re selling. When the seller is ignorant and the buyer is ignorant, it’s usually the seller who will make out in the end.

I’m not looking forward to taking this gear box apart again, cleaning everything up, setting it up according to Stangersite and then having it come out still sloppy.

Screw it. I bought a new unit from Scott Drake’s.

More precisely, I bought a Scott Drake’s reproduction steering box from Kentucky Mustang and it showed up in a box emblazoned with “Made in Taiwan” across the side. My initial impression is, Wow! this thing is tight! Of course that’s just trying to turn the input shaft by hand. I used a pair of pliers for a little needed grip. Nothing too tight where it messed up any splines. This in itself was a test as I thought maybe the thing may have been abused in shipping and jammed the input shaft. I needn’t have worried. The shaft moved easily without needing a death grip on the pliers. I got 4 turns lock-to-lock which is exactly what I was looking for. There is still a chance I may experience some slop once there is a load on both the input and output shafts.

I’m really looking forward to swapping the gear boxes. I’ll know very shortly after installing the Taiwan box if it’s any better.

I’m not giving up on the ebay box though, I still want to go through with the rebuild The Taiwan box buys me time and makes the rebuild very low on the priority list.

I admit, this is a luxury move but then again, two areas on a car I don’t want to compromise on are the brakes and the steering.