Thread: Disco I steering box leaks

Can you put a bit of heat into the outside?

When removing some tie rods, I have hit them quite hard without success, but add a bit of heat and they almost dropped off themselves.

Look they are notoriously hard to get off.

Heating them in sit u is not something I would do. I will get a change a replacement then overhaul this one off the vehicle where applying heat will not be so scary.

Breaking a pitman arm puller really said it all.

I have an expensive puller, I tried using that, then applied belting the hell out of it with a big hammer, then applied heat and hammer, then applied angle grinder to pit man arm with puller and big hammer, bingo I got it off. Then rebuilt the whole box good luck.

Ok some more things that aren't in the manual.

The lower radiator hose will get in the way. I loosened of both ends and removed the end that fits onto the radiator .

The Oil filter gets in the way. I removed the oil filter.

It only just fits out when you do all of that.

The steering tie bar looks like it needs a bush at one end. It doesn't .

I will put up some photos when I get a chance.

Originally Posted by Gina

The steering tie bar looks like it needs a bush at one end. It doesn't .

Yeah always wondered about that, why is it so?
Anyone explain it?

because its just rough.
The bolts that hold the Tie bar to the steering are also very loose the holes being around 1/16 too big for the bolts. Amazingly huge clearances.
.
I was told that the reason the seals wear is the lower bush wears out and knocks the seal around. I was also shown U-tube videos of people removing the pitman arm using a pitman arm puller.

My experience has been very different to much of what I have been told.

It is very very hard to replace the seal in situ. There are a number of difficulties.

Firstly there is no lower bush in the steering box . when I finally got it out i was looking at the end of a Torrington B-2020 needle roller bearing that was as tight as a drum. No play whatsoever in the sector shaft .

My view is the seal wears out because it is a very basic u cup seal.

To get the pitman arm ( they call it a drop arm in the manual) off was easier than I had supposed once the box is off the car.

NO need for a puller. I heated it up ) destroying the dust seal in the process. Gave it a several of good belts with a mash hammer and off it came. Fairly important to get it off quickly before it has a chance to transfer too much heat onto the sector shaft.

As you can see from the photos I brought a new Disco II steering box. I had to pull the pitman arm off that and put the original back onto it .

The Disco II has a very different pitman arm.

Somewhere I was told you cant get the pitman arm on the wrong way...oh yes you can . It has four key-ways so it is possible to get it 90 degrees 180 degrees and 270 degrees wrong .

I went to a lot of trouble to make sure the steering was straight with the steering wheel bars horizontal , marked the lower universal joint , and checked the wheels were exactly straight and the pitman arm alignment groove was exactly lined up with the hole in the steering box casting.

Knocking the pitman arm of the new steering box ( couldn't heat it as I didn't want to damage the seals) was easy enough . Hard hitting using a very large drift and a heavy mash hammer.

When I removed the box from the car I found the bolts that hold it to the chassis loose as were all of the bolts on the tie bar.

The chassis bolts are a worry. No spring washers and tightening them really tight might compress the chassis rails. There are no anti crush tubes in the chassis.

No spring washers on anything and the locknut's have very thin nylon for locking.
My solution is decent spring washers or drill and lock wire the heads of the bolts for the chassis and use decent locknut's on the Tie bar.

The ball joint came off the pitman arm using a standard ball joint extractor . Lots of pressure and it let go with a bang.