vega steering box question?

What kind of lube/grease should go into this box?
And where do you fill it from? Do you remove the lash screw to fill it? Or the cover?

Thanks
Tom

 

GM has a particular grease they recommend for the Vega box, but checking at a couple of Chevy dealers I found they don't carry it.

Sta-Lube's Extreme Pressure Grease with Molybdenum works well in mine.
Available most anywhere.

Remove the cover.
Use an iced tea s**** to fill the box with grease.
Replace cover.
Adjust play.

If you tear up the cover gasket a home-made one works well as a replacement.
Use Copper Coat to glue the gasket to the cover and a thin film of grease on the boxes machined gasket surface allows cover removal later on without tearing up the gasket.


One of these days I'm going to drill out a bolt for a zerk.
And drill a second bolt for a small air bleed screw.
Then I'll be able to fill the box without dis***embly.

The Sta-Lube grease works well and I have about 35,000 miles on the steering box and have only done one refill so far.


Fwiw - in case you didn't know - pull the cover by:
Break loose the adjuster screw lock nut.
Remove the three bolts holding the cover on.
Use a screwdriver and screw the adjuster screw in (CW) which will lift the cover off the box.
The adjuster screw stays in the box so don't try to pry the cover off or you'll damage things.

When you put it back together don't get carried away with putting too much torque on the adjuster lock nut.
There's a chance you'll pull the adjuster screw right through the threaded aluminum cover if you do.

Seen that one done a couple of times and in one case the guy gave me the box - a darned good one - cuz he thought it was ruined.
I offered to fix it for free, but he insisted it was beyond repair.

Took a half hour to make a stainless threaded piece and install it....

 

Thank you C9!!

 

Here is an article from a while ago ...

http://www.streetrodstuff.com/Articles/Steering/Vega_Boxes/

C9's suggestions for lube would be the only thing I would do different.

 

Your idea is probably the best way to go. GM discontinued their manual steering gear lube years ago.

 

I forgot to tell ya that after you steal/borrow the iced tea s****, wipe it off in the garage, wash it in the kitchen, dry it and put it back.

I got caught before I could wash the s****.

So I was at an antique store and bought one of several matching sterling iced tea s****s to use in the garage.

Got caught with that one too.

So I went back and bought the rest of the antique sterling s****s.

Now I got a cheap stamped stainless s**** for the garage and Sweetie has a nice set of antique sterling iced tea s****s.

Say . . . who the hell is in charge here anyway....

 

How do you adjust Vega to remove play?