Technical Is there a way to drain a Chevy steering box?

Hey everyone, I’ve made the mistake of filling my 1954 Chevy pickup steering gearbox with 90 weight gear oil as recommended by the manual, only to discover it leaks quickly. Does anyone know a way in which you can drain the contents of the steering gearbox without major disassembly? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
PS: I will be replacing the lubrication with a recommended thicker substitute such as corn head grease.

 

Pull the bottm bolt on the side cover, it might go into the oil.

 

I believe he's right. If you pull that bolt most of it will come out and then you can fill it with the corn head grease.

 

Most farming and logging parts of the country know about and have "corn head" grease available and everyone knows what it is. But for the rest who might be wondering, it's just a NLGI 00 semi-fluid grease that you can find just about anywhere.

 

hand operated suction pump? works like a grease gun in reverse...

 

I don't think there is any way to get the pickup tube down in the box far enough to do any good.

I can go out and look at a box I have in the shed and pull the bottom bolt and see if that will work but he has probably already tried it.

Corn head grease is easy to find where I live because we have tens of thousands of acres of corn growing in this valley.

 

I just did that by attaching a smaller flexible line to a suction pump - the type used to fill a trans - and it worked great to get down to the bottom of the steering box.

 

Thank you sir.

 

I appreciate the advice, thank you.

 

Very helpful, thank you!

 

yes that Saganaw box can be drained by pulling out a bolt. I think all but two go into the box and must have sealer applied when putting them together. it is obvious which ones don't go into the box if you study it.
that box has lots of ball bearings in the worm "nut" . using grease may keep it from leaking but not the best for the ball bearings IMHO

 

Thank for the information.

 

Agree that a typical grease that doesn't flow isn't a good solution for a recirculating ball steering box. However semi-fluid greases like 00 do flow enough to get where it's needed.

 

Tractor Supply has “00” pourable grease. It is cotton picker spindle grease. Corn head grease is “0”. Neither will cavitate as NLGI 1 or 2 grease would.

 

You might have to heat the box with a hair drier or hot air paint stripper to get the grease to flow. I used corn head in my Model A and so far so good.