Hey guys, talking to my dad the other day and asked him if he ever had any steering shaft trouble with my truck. (he bought my truck new) He said he replaced parts in the lower portion all the time. He said it was supposed to go together dry, it would have no lube, but if it had grease it would attract dirt and stuff, and it would wear it out faster. He told me that he drilled and tapped a hole in the housing of the lower section of the shaft, and threaded a grease fitting in. He said that when you put grease through the zerk, the new grease pushes the old grease out, and any crap that's in there goes with it. We haven't had a steering shaft problem since, I just gotta remember to grease it.

I don't know if this is the same problem you guys have with your steering shafts or not, but I thought this bit of info wouldn't hurt.

 

A grease fitting will extend the life of the lower joint.

I don't know who told him it was supposed to be assembled dry. It's supposed to be packed with grease before the seal is installed.

 

oh that could be. I guess the idea was to be able to grease/clean it by forcing the old gunk out with new grease instead of having to take it all apart. It is quite a job right?

 

an interesting thing I noticed on teh 1972 crew is that instead of the pot joint being at the steering box end, it is swapped. The rag joint is down there, and the pot joint is up in the engine compartment with the open end facing down, so no water or any other liquid would accumulate. The unit in the crew cab is over 35 years and original in tight condition...

When I pulled the pot joint to replace it with a borgesen I had laying around on my 1993 with 55K original miles, I tipped it on end and a bunch of old rusty WATER poured out!!! So,,, yeah I think the unit itself lasts OK but needs to be checked to ensure that you don't have sludge buildup..

 

I think that's another thing that people did to their shafts, is flip them end-to-end. My uncle did that to his w-150

 

My truck has the extreme boergeson shaft with 2 ujoints. went to change my steering box out and found the ujoints wore out. Then broke the ujoint trying to get the rusted shaft off the gear box.