adwest steering drop arm

[dejaypee]

hi

I am trying to change my bottom seals on my sector shaft. I have tried all i can think of to get the drop arm off the bottom of the shaft, even broken a 2 legged-puller on it. does anyone have any good ways to get the drop arm off with less hassle.

I am sorry if this has already been talked about but i have spent the last hour trying to find a post about drop arms.

[steve200TDi]

Hi,

If you can get hold of a hydraulic puller, then that may work, as that's what I used to remove my drop arm.

You could try a large punch on the back of the drop arm and give it a few taps to shock it then go back to the puller.

Steve

[CwazyWabbit]

There's a bit in the tech archive http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=10088, have copied the relevant bit for your convenience

Now the hard bit - the drop arm has to come off the shaft, and usually a big puller is needed to do this. There are two lugs on the drop arm, and I have a long chrome vanadium bar with a tapered end on it. From inside the engine bay the rod reaches down to the top of the drop arm on the lugs, and then I belt it hard on alternate sides until the arm lets go. There's no other way to remove the arm apart from these two methods, using heat will damage the steering box seals, but if you are going to replace the whole arm then you can cut best of the way through it and then crack it with a chisel.

Anyway - after about 10 minutes, the arm comes loose. With the rubber boot removed, the corrosion can easily be seen.

[dejaypee]

thanks for that i will give it another go in the morning. if i still cant do it i will wait until tuesday when i can get another puller but it will not be a hydraulic puller as they are a lot more money than i want to spend on a puller. i will keep you posted on how it goes.

[RustyNissanPrairie]

You will never get it off without a decent hydraulic puller and even then will struggle-the steering box has needle roller bearings on the sector shaft-bare this in mInd when trying to hit the arm off. Best way is to remove the whole steering box and press the arm off with a decent hydraulic press at your local friendly engineering shop. Mine took 19ton of force when i did it in my 60ton press at work.

[western]

You will never get it off without a decent hydraulic puller

mine did, just a few taps on each side with a hammer & it dropped off.

[Bowie69]

Ditto Ralph, dunno what all the fuss is about

[western]

possibly the arm has been loctited on last time.

[CwazyWabbit]

I had the opposite problem on mine just after I bought the 110..... it kept coming loose

[JeffR]

Given that a new drop arm is not scarily expensive, an angle grinder works every time.

[pat_pending]

Don't knock drop arms off with a hammer and drift, it's possible to crack the sector shaft or damage internal bearings, neither of wich are immediately apparent. At the very least you will damage the lower bush as the shaft gets knocked sideways. This often leads to an (even bigger) oil leak.

A drop arm that's been properly torqued up will not come off with a couple of taps.

No need for Loctite anywhere if the right drop arm is correctly fitted and tightened. You realy do need a torque wrench, it's a lot tighter than most people think is tight with a Halfords breaker bar.

Adwest and Gemmer drop arms have a slightly different taper from each other, they'll fit on the wrong boxes but will not hold tight.

[dejaypee]

Thank you for all the help. In the end, I took the whole steering box off and used a screw driver inbetween the drop arm and the power steering box and kept hitting it alternatively as well as hitting the lugs on the side of the drope arm. Eventually the drope arm popped off so I can replace the seals which should arrive on tuesday. I also replaced the ball joint on the drop arm as this was an advisory on the last MOT. Unfortunately as I was hitting the drop arm I had the bottom of the sector shaft on some concrete so I will have to re tap the thread as this has been slightly damaged.

[NickMc]

I've a Snap on puller (CJ119B) for them and it's not been beaten yet plus being snap-on if it does break i get a a new one

[cackshifter]

I've not had any luck resealing shafts - needed new steering boxes, though I plan to try a Zeus engineering seal next time as they seal in a different place.