1949 P17 Steering Gear Leak & Adjustment

[Loren]

My 49 has only 38,000 miles and steers pretty good without much wandering and I'd like to keep it that way.

I have added oil to it and have determined that the seal leaks. Not unexpected for a 75 year old car.

One of the benefits of the KT Keller era of cars is that they use a lot of off the shelf bearings and seals.

My NAPA store found the seal CR Seals/SKF ( formerly known as Chicago Rawhide ) #12350 or MoPar 639-837

 

To get to the seal you pull off the pitman arm and I did this with a cheap Harbor Freight puller. It's a spline so all you have to over come is dirt and rust.

The generator can be pushed out of the way to withdraw the sector and cap out of the top.

As usual there's two ways to do everything of course and I tend to get it right after trying every other possible way.

The top cover doesn't come off the sector until you back off the adjustment screw. My M.O. is to get the sector and the attached cover to the bench and then count the turns of the adjustment screw until they part company. I used 5 turns because it was easy to remember. The idea being if you put it back the way the factory had it, you have a better starting point than if you are guessing. ( especially with the steering gear in the car )

The next thing to do is to check the tapered bearings on the steering shaft. The manual says to push/pull on the steering wheel to detect any slop.

I could feel a tiny amount so I took the bottom cover off the gear housing. As luck would have it one of the shim/gaskets popped up while the rest stayed put.

The factory put a dimple in the frame to enable you to move the cover down a little but you can't take it off without unbolting the gear from the frame.

So I snipped the gasket and bolted the cover back on. The up & down movement of the steering wheel was 2/3 less and the turning effort had not increased. All good signs and time to stop. The shim/gaskets are made in several thicknesses and this was a thin one.

In my humble opinion, this is the most important adjustment because even a little up & down slop here moves the sector a lot. You can change the sector engagement with the worm till it's so tight you can hardly turn the steering wheel and the sector will still move if the bearings are not right.

Now the problem becomes finding another gasket for the top cover. AMSNOS.com had MoPar 1142-262 for around $8 and when I called they had 15 in stock. ( 706 ) 337-4606

The plan is to put the top cover on the sector, turn the adjustment screw 5 turns and slip it back together with the new gasket. Since I detected no wear on any of the parts it should be very close to okie dokie and it won't leak.

[Doug&Deb]

Thanks for this. It should be a big help for anyone who needs to service their own steering box.