What is their current lube recommendation for a manual steering box? The car is a 65 Valiant. Searching the site resulted in all kinds of weird and wonderful cocktails.

From factory service manual. Multi purpose gear lube (same as rear axle).

_________________
Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

Mopar Action had a nice article about 20 yrs ago. You can add gear lube to top it off, but the factory loaded it with heavy gray grease, like bearing grease (probably with lithium in it). Mopar Action put something like multipurpose Mopar bearing/knuckle grease into a coffee can and heated it on a hotplate until it flowed, then poured it into the box filler opening with a funnel. This is what I plan to do on the one I am rebuilding myself. The new ones from P-S-T and Lares appear to be full of bearing grease. Long ago, I topped mine off (when leaking or apparently not full) with gear lube and had not trouble, except that sometime it would leak out the sector shaft seal. I doubt I can find my Mopar Action article but maybe someone can find it or a web search might?

Lou

_________________
Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

As I recall the mopar action article was a mix of gear lube AND bearing grease in a 1:1 ration heated on a hotplate. Basically, if you are at the point of having a leak topping it off with 80/90 is just going to slowly rustproof your car and the driveway.


Are people having good luck with the Lares units? I am tempted

Thanks for the replies.

The sector shaft seal had been leaking for something like 10 years. It wasn’t too bad in the beginning, but naturally it got worse the more time went by. I never had a chance to change the seal, because it was impossible to remove the Pitman arm. So I just kept checking and pumping in more bearing grease when needed. Now the whole front end is dismantled and as the steering box is out of the car, I could finally change that seal (I had to cut through the Pitman arm to get it loose). So now I’m wondering whether the FSM rear axle lube would be the best choice, or some kind of cocktail? I want to fill the steering box while the box is still out of the car in order to see whether the new seal leaks or not.

I had to remove the cross shaft in order to get the old seal out. Is it okay to just try to adjust the cross shaft back to the position where it was? Before removing the cross shaft, I tried to feel for any looseness in the box, but to me it felt tight. I have read that the correct procedure for the steering box is to first adjust the worm shaft and only then the cross shaft. The instructions for adjusting the worm shaft do sound pretty daunting though, so I am not too sure I can get it any better than it already is. But I’ll give it a try, if it’s necessary. I should probably mention that during the time the box leaked, it never got dry. There was always lubrication inside, albeit probably mostly bearing grease at the end.

Wasn't there a post about using John Deere tractor grease in the steering box? I bought some based in the post but I can't seem to lay my hands on it at the moment.

_________________
-MattMan
LEANED & MEAN

Following the FSM procedure is not hard to do the worm and sector shaft adjustments, from my recollection, especially on the bench. I build/cobbled some easy tool to rotate the big plate on the top of the box for worm adjustment. Need some bolts going through a metal plate where the bolts fit into the holes in the big plate. You do not need to apply much torque. Then a big channel locks pliers to torque down the big nut while holding down the big plate. I would just put gear lube in or parts store multipurpose grease if it is an old used box. Probably doesn't matter much unless you are breaking in new gears.

Lou

_________________
Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Corn Head Grease...

I have used it in the manual steering gear on my '47 Dodge. Heating it up may help get it in, as it does not lay down or flow out as quickly as I would have liked.. but I never had the idea to heat it up.

I sure would like to do it properly, now that I have the chance, but... I can perhaps manage the physical part of loosening the lock etc, but how on earth am I going to get the adjustment correct or any better than it is? The FSM says the torque should be between 1,5 and 4,5 inch-pounds. No tool I can find goes that low. So do you do it just "by feel", or am I missing something here?

Maurice

Jegs has them https://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/M195/10 ... 20Products

_________________
63 Plymouth Valiant Wagon

Lots of choices of 1/4 beam style torque wrenches on amazon including the one that jegs has listed for more money. You absolutely must use a beam style, clickers won't do. If you wanted to spend big bux you could track down a dial style calibrated in inch pounds with a low scale. It would be more cost effective to just sublet the work rather than buy the dial style. I have the neiko beam for setting up rear diff bearing preload.

Thanks for the advice, I have only used clickety-clicks before and wasn’t familiar with these beam style wrenches.

This is the one I have
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... ajaxserp=0

_________________
Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225