State inspection time is always nice- it gives me a chance to see the cars up on the lift (since usually there's something the inspector wants me to see)… This year the trooper finally failed for the leak in the power steering box. That leak had been there since I bought the car in 2003- in fact the previous owner had a rebuild kit with gaskets that he'd given me when I got the car… But I hadn't done it since it didn't really leak that much and had never caused me trouble…
Turns out I got to learn about recirculating ball steering! Google it if you're interested- it's a fascinating design.
The pump on the bench, ready to be rebuilt. Just getting to this stage required several special pullers to remove ball joints etc...
The Ball Screw- this moves ball bearings that in turn push the piston that moves the Pitman arm (which then moves the wheels back and forth):
This is the interior of the piston that drives the pitman arm…
It was pretty cool to see the interior of this thing- but it was a bit of a pain to rebuild… In particular I was surprised by the ball bearings when they fell out of the box all over the garage floor- fortunately I was able to find all of them… Always learning!
No comments:
Post a Comment