I have heard and read that the 1LE's and other cars came with a quicker ratio steering gear. How do you tell the difference between the steering ratios's when scrounging the scrap yards. I also am wondering which ratio is in my 84 V6 bird. It is a bit of an oddity being a V6, uplevel suspension and "deluxe" interior.
Thanks for any help.

 

from what i can remember the normal one was 2 and 1/2 turns from the middle and the quicker ones were 2 1/4 or just 2. but not sure. your bird is the normal one i'm sure.

 

I understood there is a letter cast onto the housing of the WS6/IROC. A 'W' or a 'Z'. I can check when I get home tonight, unless someone else here knows.

 

mine has a z inscribed on it but i have a91 rs unless they used the same ones in the later thirdgen.'s.

 

The "Z" means nothing.

Thanx,ANDYZ28

 

Andy is right, the "Z" cast into the steering box means nothing in relation to whether or not it is a quick ratio. The quick ratio boxes start with a part number that is something like: 25000xxx or something like that... I'll have to check that when I get home.

 

Would the steering boxes be on the RPO sheet in the console?

 

no its not.

 

so does anyone know the steering box numbers of the high ratio boxes? I have a new box outta my 88 iroc parts car, its marked with a Z but I dont think that matters.

 

Could you then share what we should look for?

 

Yes, please share. I am trying to research this and I am coming up blank so far. I have found a couple of junkyard boxes but due to finances I don't want to buy one without being sure it is the high effort box.

 

I posted the same question on mnfbody and a guy named spyder said the WS6 boxes have the letters "HX" for the 3rd gen's.

 

Sure it's not "XH"??

This is correct (the HX). Can be found (if not dissolved yet) on the top of the box (on the small cover) and on the front of the box (the front round cover).

It is stamped in ink and is sometimes removed in washing/cleaning or is covered in dirt.

RBob.

 

From what I've read there is no answer to this question. The best theory I've heard so far (aside from part numbers) was that if your car came with 16" wheels stock then it came with the quick ratio box. If it came with 15's then it didnt. I dont know if there is any truth to this, but I do know that my 90 rs that came with stock 15's did not have the quick ratio box and my 91 z that did come with 16's stock does have the quick ratio box. It would make more sense if the part numbers identified them as quick ratio or not, but hey what can I say.

 

well I guess the ink must be off of mine b/c I have washed mine before. I replaced my old leaky one with one on a WS6 car. I am pretty sure it is a WS6 or quick ratio box b/c the car I bought that it came off of also had the big sway bar on the front and the car was just a parts car and everything looked pretty original to the car. unless if I am wrong but the car mine came off of was an 88 Formula 350 that had the big sway bar and a 3:27 posi that I also put into my car.
I did see some numbers stamped into my box so next time I go to the garage I will write them down and post them here.

 

hopefully this link works. click this link. it has some info on quick ratio boxes. http://64.4.8.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_la...3%26t%3d000407

 

I have an '87 RS Camaro V6 (Originally 15" rims) and it does have the quick ratio stock. Mine also has a "Z" on the case just for anyones reference.

 

ok I have the visible numbers that you can see with the box mounted in the car. on the cast iron part of the gear case it has 3 numbers that I don't think matter but they are #13, #233 and #26000525. now on top of the cast iron gear case is an aluminum cover and that cover has a letter "F" n it all by itself, a number 5 inside a star like figure with the number 16 next to it and then 2 more number totallly sep from eachother but also on the aluminum cover and they are 7A261 and the other number is 78245. I think the aluminum cover numbers are what we need but anyone know which ones??? I also have the big fat letter Z on mine but I think that might just I.D. the foundry that cast the gear case.

 

I was unable to get the link to work. Can anyone else get it to work.

Thanx,ANDYZ28

 

that link goes to www.mnfbody.com then go the technical forum and click on WS6 steerging gear box, how to I.D.

 

Quote:

#26000525

That's the one! The part #'s on the other boxes are quite different, if I remember correctly.

 

All of the "quick" boxes that I have seen have been the 800 series steering boxes.
They have a 4 bolt cover with a pre-load screw in the middle.
The "slow" boxes are the 600 series and they use a snap ring.

 

That's not true universally about the wheel size, although it may be in some years... my 83 L69 car has the quick box, and of course there were no 16" wheels that year.

It's also not necessarily true about the 4-bolt vs. snap ring thing, I bought a 4-bolt one at the boneyard once for parts (I lost some of my ***** while rebuilding mine) and it had the slow box. I also kind of needed the Pitman shaft, because mine has some pitting where the bearing runs on it, from water getting in it, and the one out of the other box wouldn't work. The teeth where it mates to the worm gear were quite a bit different.

I'll go out and look at any numbers cast into mine and see what it might say.

 

I disagree with the snap ring/4 bolt theory. My car has the 4 bolts with an adjusting nut in the middle.
BTW, how do I adjust that nut??

 

GTDave: you have to loosen the nut and have a alen wrench in the middle so you can twist it when your nut is loose. then when you're done you tighten your nut and give it a ride. remember which way you went i case you didn't like the feel. what i did was write with a magic marker before i did anything a straight line where the 4 bolt cover meets the box so i could always come back to when i started from.

 

Thanks. After I get done rebuilding the front end I am going to try this adjustment. But for now i know i have play in the right ball joint and the center link. possibly the rag joint too, but will know for sure after the new parts are in.