Just picked up a new driving (I hope) project. It's a T bucket with Not A Catalog parts in the mix. It has an almost vertical column sticking up through the floor. I'm trying to ID the steering box due to slop between the output shaft and the pitman arm. IF I can ID it and repair it at a reasonable price, I won't have to tear the thing apart and do a Corvair box before I drive it. Serious setback if that is the case. Any help in ID and parts sources would be appreciated. If you want to follow along, it's in the OT section titled Son Of Ugly T Bucket. WARNING: it has some ugly OT stuff that has not been removed yet. That's why it's over there, not polluting HAMB proper. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/son-of-ugly-t-bucket.1317089/ As you can tell, it's tucked up there and has various stuff in the way. Slightly forward from directly under. Mounts from inside frame rail. Almost directly under you can see why there isn't a shot from behind. The suspension arm and bracket are there. Just noticed numbers in this. Can clean and try to read if it helps. From front, looking back. Column extends up through floor opposite the square bottom.
I think I have one just like it . I’ll check it out tomorrow. If it is the same , mine was a ford truck ( F-1 if I can get my brain working) . More tomorrow.
looks like it might be ford truck. Did you notice the cast numbers in the picture? googling it looks like the small numbers that we can't read are helpful in ID. The 30896 number probably just means it's a ford steering gear.
I'm guessing Ford as there appears to be a place for the horn wire to exit the bottom through the steering shaft.
Looks kinda suspicious with the extra washers under the nut & lock securing the pitman arm to the shaft. Wonder if there is miss match between the arm and shaft.
Good catch. Bought it Sunday evening and knew it had slop between the shaft and arm. Tried a couple washers because the split washer was bottoming out on the shoulder past the threads, Hoped this would tighten it up some. It did not. Now looking into repair or replace. Failing that, replace with Corvair box and angled column. As you can tell, it's tight up in there. While it was on the floor, had to use a 3/4 drive socket, a half inch adapter stuck part way in and a 3/4 wrench, an eighth turn at a time. It will be a little better now it's on stands, but still not much room.
Reading up now on the HAMB of course. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-and-f100-steering-box.1070823/#post-12155000 "Well, just to add a side by side, here is a 48-52 F1, 53-56 F100 and arm, and 57-60 F100 and arm, left to right. Didn't have a F1 pitman arm handy" Judging from that picture, it's the first one, a 48-52. To pull this out, I'll have to get it up on a lift and go down. I've got one, it's just buried.
the arm looks a lot like one from a Chevy truck from around 1950, but wrong number. which might explain why it doesn't fit right
@squirrel , thanks. I went out and cleaned it up more and it sure looks like 597707GM3. I plugged that and also replacing the G with a 6 and got nothing. The splines on the shaft are pretty worn and sharp, the arm less so. I'm currently nose deep into various searches for the F1 box (most link back to here). My thoughts are this might have been an aftermarket arm, although it seems most early arms fit this shaft, so swapping to a different stock Ford arm is simple. To my untrained eye, it does not appear to be twisted, and I don't think it was bent. A good bender won't show much in the way of marks, though.It seems most used the ball before and during this time. This has a tapered hole, as shown. I can be sure the shaft in the box is worn, and before I even go down that road, I want to try to find this arm. If one is worn, the other isn't far behind unless it's a lot stronger.
Believe it's a paint drip. I've got the arm off the box, but haven't got it loose from the drag link. I don't want to tear up the boot, and don't have a puller/separator that fits.
Fords here, but no pics. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/pitman-arm-request-for-old-ford-options.222723/
use the two hammer trick to separate the drag link from the pitman arm. One hammer rests against one side of the arm, the other strikes the other side of the arm, where the taper is. this will pop off the tight taper fit.
@squirrel saw all sorts with ball ends, then found this. https://www.ebay.com/itm/226024835782?campid=5338992317 That's pretty close. If the splines don't match (of course not) that would explain all. It also means no replacement because I don't do stuff that I know is wrong, if I can help it. .
Thanks, Jim! a dozen smacks and it popped. So much easier to handle, inspect and take pics. Does appear to have been bent, and has even splines all around. 7.5" center to center. Which if true, it was always a poor fit that just got worse as it ate itself.
The Jalopy Journal
