Anyone ever replace a steering BOX? I just replaced all of my front end components with moog and am still having a little bit of hunting. I have not determined weather it is a bad allignment. I know the steering wheel is a few degrees off because it was not centered exactly. The wheel does not feel like it has any slop at stand still and I do not have any frame cracking around the box. The car has 80K time for new box?

 

I replaced mine with a quick ratio box out of an IROC. Its pretty simple. Have you tried the adjustment screw on top of steering box? If you loosen the nut, then turn down the bolt witn an allen wrench, you should be able to take out the rest of the play. Dont turn it too much or too hard or youll damage it. Good luck

 

Have not tried the adjustment. I thought that was to adjust something other than slop. I remember seeing somewhere that there is an adjustment on the input shaft that be done when the box is removed. It looks tight there how long did it take you to replace it?

 

I tore mine down and rebuilt it when I replaced all my BJs and CABs and steering linkage... replaced all of its seals and stuff, and of course adjusted it to new specs... car drives like brand new. No wandering whatsoever, where before it was impossible to even guess sometimes which lane I was going to end up in from one minute to the next. Not bad for a chassis with 320,000 miles on it.

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

RB, (you knew this was coming!), where did you buy the kit, how much was it, and how hard was the rebuild? I have an IROC quick-ratio box in my basement that's waiting to go on; if the kit's cheap enough, I might as well rebuild the box while it's on the floor.

Thanks! Oh, hey, any "specialty" tools, or can I rent/buy them anywhere? Did you need to yank the pitman arm?

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-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l) from http://www.f-body.net/mailbag/3rd/3rd_mailbag.html message boards
---Think your car could be pic of the week? Visit http://www.f-body.net for details!

[This message has been edited by TomP (edited August 01, 2001).]

 

I've seen the adjustment procedure outlined on a link from the Technical page over at www.montecarloss.com

It discusses both adjustments and indicates that adjusting off the car is better. You probably will need an inch-lb torque wrench.

Norm



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1979 Malibu w/some cornering tweaks and a few other interesting things

 

I was afraid of that...

The kit was about $25 IIRC, maybe less. I got it at NAPA. The main PITA is to pack all those damn little ***** back in it (hint: put the parts in the fridge before you do it, and use thick grease with no fibers to hold them), and it's real easy to lose some of them, other than that, it's not too hard. You do have to take the Pitman arm off the gear, no way around that, they aren't usually too bad to get off though. You need about a 3/16" punch, a huge Crescent wrench or pair of Channelock type pliers, a pickle fork for the center link, maybe a Pitman arm puller which you can "rent" for free, and common hand tools other than that. Something to hone out the inside of the gearbox, like a small dingleberry hone (you'll see what I mean when you get it apart) would be a good idea too if you can miracle that up. Hot water makes the sealing rings much easier to manage without breaking them.

Might not be a bad idea to get one at the boneyard to practice on before you dig into the one you intend to use; one off of any car with the same type will do, they're all pretty much the same inside, and they're cheap because they're so plentiful.

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

[This message has been edited by RB83L69 (edited August 01, 2001).]

 

Are there any issues with air bag deployment? When looking around I saw a warning sticker on the steering column.

 

I replaced my steering box with an AGR box and did not worry about the air bag. I did have the battery disconnected when I was working on the car.

 

How long did it take you. Incidentally, How much is the agr box? Are you satisfied with it? Thanks for the info.
W

 

I was rebuilding the entire suspension at the time so it was done at that time. I would think it would only take about 2 hours to do. I ended up getting 3 new bolts as 2 of the old ones were rusted and needed replaced. The only thing I had a problem with was getting the pitmen arm off the box, I had to take it to Firestone and get them to take it off for me. They did not charge me anything as I had been going there for a long time (3 sets of FZ50). I paid about $480 (I think) for the box and pump, this was back in February of 2000. I got to see them build my box and test it. No problems with it at all, I did clean out all the lines, as the old box was really bad.