Last weekend I had the bronco out playing in the mud and blew a seal on my steering gear box. So no big deal, got a new gear box and started swapping it out today. Once I got the new one bolted to the frame, I went to attach the steering shaft and couldn't get the clamp on the shaft to fully cover the gear on the gear box. There was no adjustment to reposition the gear box. I could only get the shafts clamp about 3/16's on and it looks like it should actually be on almost an inch. I didn't specifically look at this during disassembly, but now that I think about it, the original might have only been on the same amount.

I checked the new gear box before installation to make sure it was identical to the original. I bought the bronco last year with a 3" body lift, now I'm wondering if the body lift is why the steering shaft is coming up short.

I'm not going to reattach it with only a 3/16" bite, I definitely don't want to take a chance of it popping off. So any ideas? Saw a 31" Borgenson replacement shaft on BroncoGraveyard that can be trimmed down, but it's $239, alot more than I wanna spend.

What options do I have? Is there a another shaft from another model or line that might work? Is it even the shaft that's the issue or am I missing something else somewhere? Any thing would be appreciated. Thanx

Jason

 

Replace the seals in your original box?

 

why don't you just pull the slider out of the outer shaft a bit to fit over the box shaft??

 

Wanted a new gear box, had driven the old one for 30 miles after playing in the mud before I realized it was leaking. I wasn't going to take a chance with it.
As for sliding the two halves, I didn't know that was an option. I had asked around locally before posting and was told that where it looked like you could adjust it was actually just a safety break point built in to the shaft in case you got into a front end accident. Right now, thanks to 20 years of rust, there's definitely no adjustment there, but I'll start a WD-40 soaking treatment on that point of the shaft and see where that gets me.

Thanx guys. I'm always open to any more ideas.

 

just so we are on the same line of thought here, you are talking about the shaft on top of the box where the rag joint is, rite??

that is where i am talking about. on top of the rag joint, the 2 piece shaft that goes to the column has a slider in it so when you need to disconnect it from the box, you can move the shaft up an inch or two. it is a pain in the butt to move, but it does move.

 

Yup tjc, that's the shaft in question. After a couple of soakings of WD, got her to slide out. Got about 3/4" more shaft out, which should be enough to fully bite onto the gearbox stub and also have some play still so the u joint on the other end isn't pulled tight. I was thinking about doubling up on the rag washer to get another 1/2" or so, but I should be fine now.

Thanx everyone for your help.

 

Got it installed today, everything fit properly once I pulled it out to it's full extention.

Thanx all