draglink rebuild

[atlbluz]

I have never rebuilt my draglink and I think I have too much play in the steering box end.  I looked at the technical archives and found nothing.  What am I in for?  is this a day job or an hour?  Greg

[TodFitch]

Year & Model? Assuming it is the P6 you have listed in your profile, and assuming I am looking at the parts book correctly, it is a pretty easy repair assuming you have or can get the parts.

 

Oddly, I don't see the procedure in the factory service manual, but all you have to do is use a very large screw driver blade (I use the one of the ones that came in my hand impact driver set) to unthread the plug. Behind that is a spring and a "drag link seat" which you remove. Then you can remove the drag link ball and fish out the "drag link bearing" (the ball seat inside the bowls of the drag link. The seat, ball and bearing are all wear parts which means those are the ones you need to replace.

 

Replace in the same order you removed things. I screwed the plug in on mine until the spring was totally compressed and then backed off just a little. Not sure if that is correct but it seems to work for me.

[Young Ed]

There is a special socket to remove those ends but a large enough screw driver probably does it just as well.

[deathbound]

I did mine on my '38 P6 just as Tod described. Bought a NOS drag link repair kit, but I reused my pitman arm (part with the ball), which had some wear. I rebuilt my steering box and replaced all the tie rods at the same time. Steering has virtually no play. I used to get low speed "death wobbles", no longer.

[Jerry Roberts]

This tool fits on a 1/2 inch ratchet or a 1/2 inch extension .