Hey guys...got a bit of a problem. My bro in law blew out the seal on the bottom of my steering box where the pitman arm goes into it. If I have good directions, I can perform almost any repair....but was wondering about how hard this one's gonna be. I'm debating whether or not to replace the entire box or just the seals since I'm on a tight budget. My truck is 10 years old and has 230,000 miles on it and just started the death wobble in curves and on bumps in the last 4 months or so.

So, I guess the questions are:
1. How hard is it to get the pitman off.
2. How hard would it be to replace the seals.
3. Should I bypass the seals idea and replace the box?

 

hey the pitman is easy to pull off. you can either buy a tool to take it off or alot of auto parts stores now have tools you can borrow or rent when you buy the part there aka the seal you need.. Hardest thing for me is the snap-ring up in the housing but once that is out all i do then is start the pickup and turn the steering wheel and out comes the old seal. make sure you lube up themay actually be the trac bar is that loose.

 

thanks for the info...im just gonna have a local shop do and and i'll tell 'em while they have it on the lift to go ahead and make sure trac bar is tight. (speakin of the tracbar, i saw steve do a DIY trackbar bracket install or something.....anybody know how much that thing is?

im a bit afraid to try and pull the pitman since i saw what fun steve05ram had pulling his....as a matter of fact, i dont think he ever got it pulled. And hes a certified mechanic!! So it kinda worried me that i'd get all up in there and break something tryin to get the pitman off.

 

nothing against anyone but have never had problems pulling one off and i think i have done ALOT of them here at the shop easier to have someone else do it , it is not that spendy of a job

 

i limped it to a local mechanic to see if seals will work instead of replacing the entire box....since i got my motorcycle i dont really drive it that much anymore anyways, so even if the box is bad around the seal, new seals should last atleast a month or so til i can recover from this weeklong vacation i took and actually pay for a new gearbox.

as far as the pitman, i've heard one of my friends who said he's tried many but only got one pitman off in his life.....then another friend said they almost slide off....then saw steve05ram on here have just a splendid time with his pitman and never got it off lol...so i dont wanna risk anything, i'll just have it done in a garage.

and this is coming from someone who did his own wheel bearings, LOL. which is harder, wheel bearings or steering gearbox seals?

 

depends, sometimes those wheel bearings can be stuck in there pretty tight.... good luck

 

meh, i bit the bullet and took it to a local mechanic.... $20 for all the seals and $73 for labor, it didnt hurt as bad as i thought it would. i'm not very good at workin on vehicles but can sometimes manage to find my way through a repair every once in awhile with the limited tools i had....i just didnt have the tools or knowledge to do this one.

so far no leaks so i dont think its the gearbox itself thats bad....but i still have a few more weeks to keep an eye on it before im satisfied its okay..... if it leaks again im gonna replace the gearbox.

thanks for all the input guys.

 

I went with a steering box with a lifetime warranty spendy but when it leaks or get sloppy I just take it back. Done it twice so far. Really starting to believe in those lifetime warranties.

 

New seals lasted about a year, i ended up replacing the gear box myself.....my dumb @$$ got distracted by a shiny thing in the corner of the room and got to playing....spun the free-spinning steering wheel around too many times and now my ABS light is on and none of my cruise control buttons work lol

 

Hate to tell ya this, but I think you damaged the clock spring in your steering wheel. This can be very bad because it can accidentally deploy your airbag if spun too far one way or another.

Whenever anyone is working on their steering, they absolutely need to bind the steering wheel so it returns to a neutral position. I like to run a bungi cord through the wheel to either the brake peddle or to the driver seat frame.

Who's box did you put in? I just dropped a Borgenson box in my 05. I haven't driven with it yet as most of the front end is still torn apart. However, what I can tell is it is a vast improvement over the stock junker. The wheel is tighter than my 06 Mustang GT. No play whatsoever in the wheel.

I've been using a Borgenson intermediate shaft for several years now. These two items together really improve the feel of the truck. Plus, they're pure beef.

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