Manual Steering Gear
I-MARKDisassembly
1. Carefully clamp steering gear assembly in soft jaw vise.
2. Disconnect tie rod ends from tie rods.
3. Remove clamping wire and hose clamp from rubber bellows. Remove bellows from steering gear housing and ball joint.
4. Disconnect ball joint from rack. Hold rack with open end wrench to avoid damage to rack.
5. Loosen adjusting screw locknut, screw out adjusting screw and remove thrust spring and bearing shell from adjusting screw opening.
6. Remove locknut and screw plug from steering gear housing. Do not turn pinion to end position.
Fig. 1 Manual steering gear assembly. I-Mark:
7. Pull pinion and rack out of steering gear housing, Fig. 1.
Assembly
1. Clamp steering gear assembly in a soft jaw vise. Coat all moving parts during assembly with approximately .8 oz. of steering gear lubricant or a multi-purpose type grease.
2. Insert long toothless end of rack into short end of housing until rack ends protrude equally out of ends of housing. Check to ensure three air channels of sintered metal bushings are not obstructed by lubricant. If air channels are blocked, a vacuum condition in the bellows may result during operation, resulting in the bellows being drawn inward and jamming the rack teeth.
Fig. 2 Pinion shaft installation I-Mark:
3. Install pinion shaft into gear assembly so that pinion is so positioned that the bolt hole in pinion shaft flexible coupling is on top and parallel to the rack, Fig. 2. This operation is to ensure the pinion center tooth engages the rack center tooth.
4. Assemble screw plug and locknut on gear assembly. Torque screw plug to 58 ft. lbs. and locknut to 72 ft. lbs. When installing screw plug, tape splines on shaft to protect lip of oil seal against damage from pinion shaft splines.
5. Install bearing shell, thrust spring, adjusting screw and locknut into gear housing assembly.
6. Torque adjusting nut to 11 ft. lbs. exc. on 1983-85 and 3.7 ft. lbs. on 1983-85, then back off 1/12 of a turn exc. on 1983-85 and 1/13 on 1983-85. Measure pinion shaft starting torque, should be 3.4-12.0 in. lbs. If not, make an adjustment within back-off limits of adjusting screw. Torque locknut to 58 ft. lbs. exc. on 1983-85 and 51 ft. lbs. on 1983-85.
7. Screw ball joints onto both ends of rack. Torque to 65 ft. lbs. Hold rack with open end wrench.
Fig. 3 Installing tie rod:
8. Install tie rod ends onto tie rods as shown in Fig. 3. Torque locknuts to 47 ft. lbs.
9. Lubricate axial joint with a suitable grease. Slide rubber bellows onto axial joint and steering gear housing. Connect rubber bellows with retainer wires. Ensure that rubber bellows is not twisted.