Day 84 - 28 Chev Ute Restoration (24th December 2015)

Santa came a day early with a parcel or reconditioned steering box parts, enough for the 28 ute restoration and the Red Chev.

On the photo below you will see that the inner hole on the bush appears to be off center.........Correct............This is why a good friend of mine who did the work is pretty clever.

Chev 4 Steering boxes develop wear and excessive play in the steering wheel. After making the two normal adjustments possible, any remaining movement is caused by either worn bushes or the sector and worm gears are worn.

You can replace the bushes in the housing which eliminates a small amount of play, but the only way to fully fix the problem is to either fit new gears (not available and too expensive to have made) or reduce the center line distances between the worm and sector gear.

This is where my mate comes in with a mod that has done thousands of miles in his 28 Chev truck with no problems, and that's good enough for me.

The process involves a lot of machining and is as follows

1. After removing the 2 sector gear shaft bushes, the housing is bored out to take a larger diameter bush.

2. The new full length bush is machined to be a firm rotatable fit in the housing, slightly longer than the housing and has a hexagonal end to fit a custom made spanner.

3. The ID of the new bush is then bored off center to suit the sector shaft.

4. With all steering box parts assembled, the full length bush can be adjusted to bring the centers of both gears closer together to reduce the degree of play between the gears.

5. With the desired amount of play between the two gears set, a locking screw fitted to the housing is tightened

An added bonus of a full length bush is the load on the steering sector shaft is now spread over a larger area, complete with the necessary grease entry point an grease spreader grooves.

As part of the process the two sector gear shafts were center ground to remove any wear, and look brand new.

My mate also sent me a straight pitman arm, complete with a new tie rod ball that he made and fitted.

This replaces the pitman arm on the 28 ute, which like so many other parts on this poor thing was bent and "distressed"

 

 

Very happy to receive this "care" package of bits and pieces, and many thanks to my friend.

 

He knows who he is!!