My '65 has a power steering set-up from the early 70s. Exact year and from what.... I don't know.

The steering is pretty loose and a mechanic freind who was in town breifly determined the steering gearbox was loose. I am a novice do-it-yourself guy when it comes to auto repairs, but "handy" overall. Is this something I can do myself? I know I will need to get the alignment checked after, but is pulling the gearbox and installing a new one fairly easy or something I should let a mechanic do?

Thanks!

 

Cardone lifetime warranty gear boxes can be had for around 130.00 thats the easiest and cheapest route.

 

On the top of the steering box there should be a tag attached to it...post the info and I can decode it for you...it will tell me what year the box is for one...as for slop...these trucks always had loose steering when compared to todays cars and trucks and hopping from one to the other is a time warp of sorts...As for changing it out...its not hard...and the parts that commonly wear are, as I recall still available readily and cheap to acquire..as for determining the slop...IMO, the only way to check that is to poke your head under the hood and grab the rag joint flex coupler where it goes to the steering box and rotate it as you will be able to see the pitman arm move right below plus if you rotate it very slowly a few times back and forth you can get a pretty good feel for how much or little slop there is...
Lastly...look at the condition of the rag joint itself as thats the weakest link in the steering and will definately show its age and deterioration if its failing...have a helper simply rotate the steering wheel back and forth as you look at the about of flex it does itself...my original was in dreadful condition...and I had a 10' cabover freshly removed when I discovered my accident waiting to happen...mine was all but hanging on with one of the two rivets...This is an easy ...and cheap part to replace as well...other weak areas are the drag link and tie rods and lastly the king pins...all except the king pins can be checked at for wear with the truck on the ground as if anything is loose, moving the wheel back and forth and observing what each joint does or doesnt do will show up...The steering box would be, IMO the very last thing I would look at...

Let me know what you come up with...check the steering with the engine off ...also let me know what you come up with for the tag on the steering box.


- cs65

 

Yeah, I was just gonna replace it rather than having it rebuilt. Pricing I have seen is reasonable enough. Just don't know what I have and what I need until I pull it.....

 

Thanks Camper! I'll take a peek under the hood soon.

 

If it's just loose, you can adjust these boxes. Make sure wheel is in the center of travel, by turning it all the way to one lock, then count the turns it takes to get to the other lock. Now turn the wheel half the number of turns back the other direction. Loosen jamb nut on adjuster, tighten adjuster with standard screwdriver, leaving a little play in the steering wheel, and tighten jamb nut.

 

Hold up, before you go screwing around with something that shouldn't need adjusting, check the rag joint. How much movement is in the steering wheel with it sitting still.





John

 

Thanks for the info guys......

I will look at all these possibile cures before I start pulling things apart. I'll report back....

 

I covered that rag joint issue John if ya read my post...


- cs65

 

Agreed, I wouldn't have posted the adjustment, had the rag joint not already been addressed. I figure he'd start at the top and work his way down.
When I got my 66, I could get nearly a quarter turn of the wheel, with a brand new rag joint. 2 minutes worth of work doing the adjustment, and it was snug as a bug.

 

Just an FYI fo camper......

The tag on top of the steering gearbox is missing. I saw a diagram of a steering gearbox with the tag, so I know what you were refering to. There are some numbers on what looks like a disc with a fill valve (?) on top of the gearbox. Would those numbers be any help??

It has the FoMoCo logo then "C6AR" with "3580-A2" below it.

There are some numbers on the side of the gearbox as well, but I can't read those.

Again, I will check the play in the rag joint first, but would like to know the gearbox model in case I need to replace that.

Thanks for all the help thus far!