Thread: Am fitting new steering box PITA

Originally Posted by PhilipA

What a PITA.

... i'll be tackling the same job soon >>>>>> again

Well, Its all finished now.
Went together OK except the bloody unions did not want to start, as the old pipes must be a bit bent.
I ended up taking the oil cooler pipes off completely, for yet another half litre of oil over everything.
Funny, that the low pressure pipe only did up a couple of turns before going hard, but it holds oil in so I am not trying to second guess whether it is cross threaded. I used new Orings so these may have been thicker than the old ones. Certainly the small one was really compressed.

The box straight ahead position was just about perfect vs the position of the steering arm but it took me a couple of goes to get the steering wheel position correct. The new box has a waist right round. After one go the wheel was off about 30degrees so I took the wheel off rather than trying to R&R the column next to the hot manifold.

HINT- When you remove the "sandwich" replace the gasket with the one from the oil filter you just took off.
Regards Philip A

Just had to rebuild mine also!
Car sat idle for 6 months while I was overseas. Although batteries disconnected, dead flat and starting one dead!
OK, started and drove a few KM and blew main seal of steering box!
Mine has TD5 conversion-- you think you had trouble getting box out???? 2 hours just to get the "loose" box out!
Anyhow, I could fit a 10t hydraulic puller straight onto the output shaft/drop arm, without removing anything else (?).
Screwed up to I reckon the full 10 tonnes and still on!! small tap on the side of arm and off it came!
NOTE: follow the manual and leave the nut on a few threads! or you could lose a hand!
Corroded output shaft, so stripped another spare box; swapped bits back and forth to get best.
All good! Back on the road!

I can't recall any particular problem (except removing the drop arm) when I changed mine - but it was about 12 years ago and it was a 3.5 (well, a 3.5 bored and stroked to a 4.6),

Did mine the other week on my 2 door... 4.4 conversion with a 3.5 front cover.. was pretty straight forward though I did manage to break my oil pressure switch and put a dent in the oil filter (cbf taking it out, I was lazy).

Oil went everywhere and I got covered in years worth of crap which had stuck to the leaky box.

I also found that the low pressure union nut only went in a couple turns.. holds pressure though? I found it was easier to drop the box on the ground with the lines still attached, then undo them. As otherwise the suspension tower gets in the way and you cannot get a spanner in there.