Steering box question

[Chevyguy78]

Any one ever replace there steering box yet? I have to do mine soon. Just looking for any advice you may have. Thanks in advance!

 

[dirtridinz71]

Its not to terrible of a job and wont take to long if things go smoothly. Might as well put a new pitman arm on while you are at it. The steering shaft can sometimes be a pain to get off, if the slip part is rusted. Other then that just a mater of undoing the pitman arm from the center link, 2 lines and the 3 bolts that hold the box on.

 

[great white]

Pickle fork and pop your drag link before removing the box mounting bolts. Air hammer powered pickle fork is best. If none, hope you get lucky in the first couple hits or you are going to be cursing up a storm for a while. Back the taper nut off 2-3 threads before you start hitting the pickle fork so it just lets go and doesn't drop. The just spin the nut off and take the drag link off the taper.

Pulling the pitman arm requires a pitman arm puller. there's a lot of force on the arm to box shaft. 2 and 3 jaw pullers usually just go to pieces. If you're lucky using a 2/3 jaw puller, one will work and not shoot a piece at your face.

You can see they are built significantly more "robust" to deal with the forces involved-

Pitman puller:

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Gear puller/2/3 jaw:

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Be safe and drop the 20-30 bucks on the proper puller.

Better yet; remove box and pitman arm as an assembly, chuck both and install a new box and arm.

Easier, quicker and safer.

Cheers

 

[dirtridinz71]

Pulling the pitman arm requires a pitman arm puller. there's a lot of force on the arm to box shaft. 2 and 3 jaw pullers usually just go to pieces. If you're lucky using a 2/3 jaw puller, one will work and not shoot a piece at your face. Be safe and drop the 20-30 bucks on the proper puller.

Better yet; remove box and pitman arm as an assembly, chuck both and install a new box and arm.

Easier, quicker and safer.

Cheers

Yup its hardly worth the effort to swap an old pitman arm.

 

[Chevyguy78]

I was planning in replacing the pitman arm at the same time. From what I was told they both have a tiny bit of play in them. The reason im going to do all this is because I get death wobble above 45mph. Everything else is in good shape. I took it in for an aignment because it was pulling to the left and wobbly at 50mph. Tthhe alignment place had my truck for 33 days trying to figgure out the death wobble issue. And the steering box and pitman arm is all they found.

 

[Steve's Chevy]

Just replaced mine and it has a lil leak at the fitting. Make sure you check the O rings condition , it was something I overlooked and now have to replace the O ring. O we'll could be worse

 

[Chevyguy78]

Just replaced mine and it has a lil leak at the fitting. Make sure you check the O rings condition , it was something I overlooked and now have to replace the O ring. O we'll could be worse

thanks I will keep that in mind when i do mine

 

[sewlow]

When I changed the one in my black truck, I got the 454SS fast ratio style steering box. Externally exactly the same as the original, just different guts. Takes about 1/2 - 2/3 of a turn less from lock to lock. Was warned that it might make the truck feel 'twitchy' @ speed. I didn't find that. I like it so much, that I'm gonna put the same in the blue truck when it is needed. Picked it up from a local rebuilder. He said that he could install darn near any ratio that I wanted. Same price as a stock replacement.

 

[great white]

When I changed the one in my black truck, I got the 454SS fast ratio style steering box. Externally exactly the same as the original, just different guts. Takes about 1/2 - 2/3 of a turn less from lock to lock. Was warned that it might make the truck feel 'twitchy' @ speed. I didn't find that. I like it so much, that I'm gonna put the same in the blue truck when it is needed. Picked it up from a local rebuilder. He said that he could install darn near any ratio that I wanted. Same price as a stock replacement.

Hmmmmm.....I've thought about this very thing before myself but never went through with it....

 

[88GMCtruck]

When I changed the one in my black truck, I got the 454SS fast ratio style steering box. Externally exactly the same as the original, just different guts. Takes about 1/2 - 2/3 of a turn less from lock to lock. Was warned that it might make the truck feel 'twitchy' @ speed. I didn't find that. I like it so much, that I'm gonna put the same in the blue truck when it is needed. Picked it up from a local rebuilder. He said that he could install darn near any ratio that I wanted. Same price as a stock replacement.

Hmmmmm.....I've thought about this very thing before myself but never went through with it....

Hum, I'm going to look into this. Never though of it but IMO the regular box is too slow...