Has anyone ever?

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Mr Clean

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Has anyone ever rebuilt the steering gear box on one of our truck? Mine is leaking in two or three places. I have another one I can rebuild and just replace it on my truck in a couple hours. I have never rebuilt one, don't now if it hard, easy, what tools are needed, is there a master rebuild kit, while I'm in it is there anything I could up grade. Let me know
 

crazy4offroad

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It's not bad, just dont get carried away on disassembly and go further than you need to. There's a trick to popping out the pitman arm shaft that I didnt try that might have made it easier, I think you have to take something loose and start the truck up and steer it to start it popping out. The end where the steering shaft goes in has a couple seals so it's not bad really. I think Irishman did a writeup on it here somewhere.
 

Irishman999

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I lost all but 3 pictures of it while I had it apart! The rebuild was a failure anyways. To answer your question Shawn, Rock auto shows two kits. One kit is like a master kit with all new gaskets, some seals and a new thrust washer bearing thing. The other kit is the pitman arm shaft seals, just the two seals, a washer and a new retaining clip.

If you have a backup on hand I say try it out, I screwed mine up somehow but you might have better luck. The worse part of trying to put one back together is the ball bearings inside of it, you will see what I am talking about. Other than that its pretty simple, there is a piston that you put the new seals on among other stuff you replace with parts from the master kit.

If the leak is only coming from the pitman shaft, you can fix it for less than 10 bucks. I know you mentioned yours was leaking out of everywhere.

I think the trick that Curt is talking about is to get these two pitman shaft seals out, you pull the retainer clip and turn the truck back and forth and they blow out.
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Just pull these 4 bolts and pull the whole shaft out, you dont have worry about ****** anything up or adjusting anything when it goes back in.
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With the shaft out you can easily pound out the two seals from the inside and just as easily pound the new ones back in. Dont try to put them in with the shaft in place, I destroyed one set doing that. I used my bearing seal driver and it worked like a charm.
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Old77

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What nice hands you have :naughty:
 

foamypirate

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A note on the ball bearings inside...they are alternating sizes, and only differ by about .005" inches...and it does make a difference if you get them in there wrong.
 

bucket

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A note on the ball bearings inside...they are alternating sizes, and only differ by about .005" inches...and it does make a difference if you get them in there wrong.

I've read that too. And apparently it's possible to install the wrong amount of ball bearings in one location. I guess you can fit too many in there. It's not something I've had the balls to try doing yet.
 

smurph20

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I did the pitman shaft seals on my jeep a couple of years ago. All i had to do was break the nut loose and start it up somebody said earlier and itll push the old seals out and i used a short length of PVC pipe to drive the new ones back in so they went in straight it was pretty easy once i figured out what to do.
 

Mr Clean

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I'm going to try it, I'll swing by AZ see if they can get me a rebuild kit, and try it this weekend.
 

smurph20

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WOW i checked the prices on the rebuild kits from the what i call big 3 AZ, Oreillys, and Advance and AZ was the cheapest at 26 for the kit.
 

Swims350

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they had a video on muscle car, on the power block complete tear down and rebuild of one, looked the same to me as one of these.
 

Irishman999

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A note on the ball bearings inside...they are alternating sizes, and only differ by about .005" inches...and it does make a difference if you get them in there wrong.

Directions failed to mention that! :roflbow:

That is most likely why my rebuild never worked.
 

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