Steering box shims, very confused...

[monkey welder]

Hi all - I've just rebuilt the steering box on my 68 series 2A, and all seemed to go fine.  However, the end bearing race sticks out way more than the thin shims can cope with (a good few mm) and i am totally perplexed as to why this is.  It is as if i'd put in new larger ball bearings (which i have not..).  3 shims came off the box before the rebuild, now it would need about 10 to seall it all back up!  Has anyone got any idea what i may have done wrong, as everything appears to be rebuilt fine?

[simonb]

Possibly some/one of the balls have dropped out of the top or bottom bearing races which then had moved the entire race axially. Bit difficult to test if it isn't all together, but does the input shaft move from lock to lock ok?

When I did mine it was a right PITA keeping all of the balls in the top race, even when packing them with grease. From what I remember, I fitted the top race and the balls first with lots of grease. Then held that race tight against the worm with a couple of jubilee clips on the shaft. Then feed that in through the top of the box without the clamp casting attached and got the recirculating balls and worm nut in. Then fitted the bottom race/balls again with loads of grease and then fitted end cap and shims. Finally carefully remove the jubilee clips and fit tube clamp casting to other end. I held the whole assembly in a big vice as you need about 3 pairs of hands otherwise.

Edited August 18, 2022 by simonb

[Brrrrt]

On 8/18/2022 at 10:02 AM, monkey welder said:

Hi all - I've just rebuilt the steering box on my 68 series 2A, and all seemed to go fine.  However, the end bearing race sticks out way more than the thin shims can cope with (a good few mm) and i am totally perplexed as to why this is.  It is as if i'd put in new larger ball bearings (which i have not..).  3 shims came off the box before the rebuild, now it would need about 10 to seall it all back up!  Has anyone got any idea what i may have done wrong, as everything appears to be rebuilt fine?

I’m curious if the original poster ever found out what was wrong, as I’m hanging the same issue with my steering box chime for my 70’ S2A and all the balls appear to be properly seated/aligned in the bearing races. I did it three times yet it now acts like it needs more than double the amount of shims. 
 

Any help would be great!!

[monkey welder]

I'm afraid i don't have a clever answer as it continued to baffle me no matter how much i studied it.  In the end i fabricated my own very thick shim and then used standard shims to get the right degree of pressure.  It was a very strange thing, but as wrong as it was, my steering is still working perfectly...!

[Snagger]

It has to be either a dropped ball sitting somewhere it shouldn’t or the outer race near the top (column) end of the box isn’t seated correctly against the column clamp.  Either way, if you kept the same balls, inner column and casing, then is should have the same shims or thinner.  Any extra thickness is an assembly problem and could be catastrophic if driven in that condition.  Hope you both find the cause.