OK, Go easy this is my first tech. It is simply how to tighten up the stock manual steering box on a GM truck. Mine is a 1958 Chevy Apache. OK, 1) Remove the nut and washer from the pitman arm, and use a pitman arm puller to pull the pitman arm of the sector shaft. 2) On the side that faces the motor, you will see a bolt with a slot in it sticking out of the box and a nut holding it in place. That is the check nut holding the lash adjuster in place. loosen the check nut on the side of the box and turn the lash adjuster a few turns counter clock wise. This take the load off the worm bearings from the sector teeth. (Number 16 and 15 in diagram) 3) Turn the steering wheel all the way in one direction to the stop, being very gentle, and then back one turn. 4) measure the pull on the steering wheel with a fish scale you got at a bait shop...or just feel for about one to one and one half pounds of pull. At this stage of the game mine was just silly loose with no pull at all. Actually I had a good three inches of nothing in the middle of the wheel before I started. 5) Loosen the lock washer on the bottom of the box. Its big you will need a 2 and 1/4" hex socket to turn it. I got mine at Sears. (god I love Sears) It will take a 3/4 breaker bar to turn it, or get an adapter to use your 1/2" breaker bar...that's what I did. (number 1 in diagram) 6) Turn the worm bearing adjuster clock wise to tighten it...It won't take much. But W.T.F. How do I turn this thing? It is a big diameter screw type thing with a shallow grove in the end of it which is totally shallow to the point of nonexistence on either end and then gradually gets deeper toward the middle....Hum, it is also too wide to put any kind of screw driver known to man in it...what to do, what to do....Well I noticed that the Lock nut / washer I had just removed looked like about the same width as the grove in the worm bearing adjuster, and sure enough it goes right in that slot. I held in in the grove with one hand and turned it by sticking a screw driver through the hole sideways and using it as a simple lever. It worked. (number 2 in diagram) (Also see pictures of mine as I removed the lock nut/washer and proceeded to use it to turn the adjuster) (The pictures are taken from under the truck laying on your back looking up at the bottom of the box.) 7) check pull on wheel with fish scale or by feel, as I did. 8) Put the worm bearing adjuster lock nut / washer back on and tighten it down. 9) Turn steering wheel all the way to one stop, turn it all the way to the other counting the rotations. Turn back half way. 10) Screw the Lash Adjuster back into the box, and tighten down the check nut to hold it in place. 11) Make sure the wheels are pointing straight ahead and put the pitman arm back on the sector shaft and tighten down. Box still needs new sector shaft bushing and my front end is by no means solid, but it is much, much, better. Oh, and 12) contemplate what a PIA all this BS is for less than great steering and think about chucking tradition and putting on a power rack unit....then disregard this thought.
Yeah, nice how to. You could do a little more at step 10, try to adjust the screw so it will give you a pound or two more force to turn the wheel as it goes "over the center". If the gears are worn, this may be hard to do! but it's worth a try.
Thanks. That was as bright as I could get the pics. I agree they are too dark, but that was the best I could get them at the time.
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