Saginaw 800 Power Steering Gear Box Part 1

[@michaeldesormeaux6683]

Very good video. It helped a lot. The hose trick worked awesome, I couldn't believe it was that easy. Thanks for the help!!!

[@hutchhiperf]

@@michaeldesormeaux6683 I'm glad it helped.

[@stangohr]

Very nice, informative video. As a mechanic for 50 years, I strongly recommend changing the sector-shaft seals on the bottom, on top of the pitman arm. There usually 2 seals, not interchangeable, and they leak all the time. When they do, you often--but not always--have to remove the steering gear to change them--so best to change them when the gear is on the bench. As well, you will want to get the very best Pitman arm you can--there's too much Chinese junk floating around and, sadly, even Moog is not what they used to be since moving production, mostly, off-shore.

[@sapperranger04]

Hey, thanks for these video's. I just rebuilt my steering box on my 1972 nova by using these videos as a guide. Everything went together smoothly. Thanks for the attention to details.

[@hutchhiperf]

+sapperranger04 Thank you. I never expected this series of videos to amount to anything but some fun for me to do. I'm glad it helped. I had a 1970 Nova SS when I was a younger man. I love that body style the best out of the model line.

[@chrisrye9128]

Just wanted to say thanks for this series. Saved me a lot of cash. Worked like a charm.

[@sallydawson79]

Thanks so much for taking the time to put this video together. I recently installed a reman steering box in my 77 Olds Delta 88 and I was very disappointed with how stiff the steering was after the install. Hopefully it is just adjusted too tight, we'll find out soon enough. Fingers crossed that readjusting it will bring back that featherlight steering that I loved so much.

[@hutchhiperf]

+Sally Dawson Thanks Sally. I started filming as just something to do. I never thought it would be viewed more than a couple of times. I watched your vid on other shops throwing on parts instead of fixing the prob. Preaching to the choir girl! I had the same frustration when I was a line tech many years ago. Keep the faith.

[@aarongoff7]

Outstanding information, thank you. I recently replaced nearly the entire front suspension on my '99 Suburban. Handling greatly improved but it still 'wandered' on the highway so I ultimately replaced the gear box. This fixed the wandering issue but there was still considerable play in the steering. The pre-load adjustment you showed was just the ticket to remove the play.

[@mohamadtabaroei5433]

Hi, thank you very much for the fact that you made this informative video, it was completely helpful and informative to me. I live in Iran and have a Chevrolet Camaro 75, which was in trouble with the steering wheel system, and there's no American car mechanic in our town, thanks to your educational videos, I could open the steering box and repair it. Thank you very much. God bless you. Good luck. Best wishes.

[@hutchhiperf]

Thank you sir. I'm glad it was helpful to you. May God bless you as well. Great to hear from you. Hutch

[@beavisaurus]

History lesson: At the start of the video, it mentions the SS box obtained because it was a faster ratio than the 442 box. I feel that info needs correction as it isn't true. (I am not discounting the quality of the rebuild videos because they are excellent.) The SS and 442, both with included F41 suspension, used the same 12.7:1 ratio 800 series saginaw box. Both were coded "YA" on their respective build sheets. I know it's an older video, but felt it worthy of this slight correction. Might save you some money searching for a different box when you may not need to.

[@voipguru77]

Thank you very much for the video. Exactly what I was looking for!

[@januariomuchanga1655]

Congratulatons, Sterring is just like brain surgery. I had to look for help from different specialist to rebuild the one from my Land Rover Defender

[@abdyfe]

let me tell this was a very very very good video smart man.....

[@castlejack7806]

thanks for sharing your knowledge!!!!!!!!!

[@josephpuchel6497]

Hello nice tutorial I need to change out the seal at the top. Is the seal right under the part you would use with spammer wrench

[@ThePuppetLady.]

thank you for your video's they are very helpful. i rebuilt my gearbox following your video. after assembly it worked fine and smooth rotating the steering shaft from end to end. after rotating the shaft several times the piston would eventually stop going all the way to the end. i turn the gearbox or tap on it and it would break loose and work fine for a while. i took it apart, checked for bearings coming out, or debris in the way of the piston, all looked ok, but still continued the same pattern even with the output shaft removed. what am i doing wrong? thank you.

[@deankay4434]

@Cynthia Rauscher >I am trying to follow your issue now 5+ years later in September 2021. You are saying the piston hangs up, even with the pitman arm removed. I call it the cross-shaft. But let us review. With no pressure, you are manually turning the input shaft, watch the turns and then stops or hangs up. With the pitman arm removed, you are turning the input shaft. It is splined to the torsion bar that connects to the front of the spool valve, then applies force to the worm gear running on the ball train in the middle of the piston. The spool valve bore may have debris, the worm gear could have a pit or nick, many place polished steel balls with a black smaller ball between them. And the piston bore and seals, once clean & inspected should be fine. Do you have a full set of ball bearings, fed into the worm gear? Are the shiny then black or dark? If the pitman shaft is out & it still does this from time to time, it has to missing one ball bearing, hard debris in the spool valve or the flat bearing (Torrington) has a bad spot that catches the input shafts torsion bar. Old seals material, sliver of metal or some type of debris would cause this on the bench. Without pressurized fluid directed to the piston thru the spool valve, it is going to impossible to say, short of disassembly, inspecting first (I like finding the problem) then cleaning and basically repeating your previous efforts. The torsion bar fractured, piston teeth broke or badly gauled or an obvious chunk of debris could cause this, your issue. 1 thing not an issue here, but front to rear play in the pitman arm. I don’t have them memorized but the bottom needle bearing was a full design, then a plastic cage was added reducing the needle contact. I hate the second design. When you hit a pot-hole, it places huge forces on the pitman shaft. I check for pitman movement front to rear with clean needle bearing and a good smooth pitman w/dial indicator. At 0.003 thou. the case is oblong. It is deemed, steel bushing pressed in, then the good needle bearing and pitman shaft. It has no measurable movement now. But that is something I checked during a rebuild. I did reseals on the cheap, but full rebuilds in 95% of cases. It has to be right, or no guaranty and needs reman or traded off the vehicle. Water under the bridge now, but I hope you understand better. ASE Master Tech since 1978 - Retired

[@cmagnuss]

Hey, great vid! Can I tighten the input shaft preload while it's in the vehicle with the fluid still in it? It's my second box and it still has play in the centre.

[@abdyfe]

with my truck running it seen like i dont have no tention in the wheels seems like its nothing hook up it feels that loose...its a 90 fullsize k5 blazer 35x12 tires on it..if that will help u out any

[@jerdobi]

Have you heard of a steering box grunting? My Land Rover Discovery 1 steering hoses where changed and afterward started grunting when truck steering wheel turns back and forth standing still and moving just a bit. Normal speed no issues. Do I need to rebuild the steering box?

[@hutchhiperf]

I wonder if you still have some air in the lines. Seems unlikely, but if it worked OK before maybe that's it. Get the front wheels off the ground and with it running, check the fluid level. Turn the wheel hard left and then right multiple times ans see if your level went down (bled the air out). If it's not air in a line, you'll have to dig deeper.

[@petratical]

Shouldn't you have also marked the position of the shaft that connects to the steering column so that the steering wheel will be centered?

[@hutchhiperf]

Watch this video at minute 7 16 kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmLbpJJ3fKmmbNU I also pulled the whole steering column and I'm using a Jeep intermediate shaft when it goes back together.

[@abdyfe]

hey this is my second gear box from o 'rally auto parts store dont no if u heard from them or not both boxes were no good i still have play in my wheel everything is new under there with the truck running i can turn my rag joint shaft and as sonn as i move it ican see the oitman arm starts to move bit not my tires wat do u think

[@hutchhiperf]

+abdyfe Sounds like there may be some slop somewhere in the linkage to the spindles. Hard to say from here :-)

[@jayb9687]

What if you do those two adjustments and you still have the tiniest bit a play still at the input shaft? We're talking like a /64th or /32nd inch. Just bugs me that it's not close to zero. There's always that "dead" spot in the middle going down the highway where you have to always make the smallest adjustments to keep it going straight. Very annoying. Everything else has been replaced, control arms, rag joints, tierods, steering link, pitman arm, balljoints. you name it. i've narrowed it down to the steering box which came from the junkyard. it looked pretty decent shape I guess looks can be deceiving.

[@hutchhiperf]

You just have to play with that adjustment to take up the slop. Too much and it wont return to center on it's own, There's a fine line you have to dance.

[@jayb9687]

Thank you good sir. Being the eternal tinkerer, I just had to know "what the heck is making it do that?" So using videos like yours and forums I completely disassembled mine, meticulously I might add, cleaned off everything, bagged all the bearings and parts, and set them aside for a future project. I really didn't see anything standing out, there was some galling and wear on the edges of the big gear with the 3 teeth on it. It has 250k miles on it, it may be a lost cause but who knows. In the meantime I found a like new box at the u-pullit to keep me going :) Happy tinkering. ;)

[@hutchhiperf]

@@jayb9687 That's a bit of good news. Thanks for the update. Happy tinkering in return!

[@ronreagan5572]

Nice vid.

[@hutchhiperf]

calivita77: It looks that way, except no gigantic leak :-)

[@ronreagan5572]

A link to verbiage can be found online. (copy/paste) "Steering Gear Box Adjustments" into your browser, I could not get the link to work.