Question: Replacing the Pitman shaft seals '88 Ranger

[jeremythelee]

We figured out the seal is bad on the pitman shaft of my ranger. it leaks pretty bad sitting in the driveway. so instead of putting a quart of fluid in every time i want to go somewhere, im gona fix it. anyone ever done this before? if so is there anything i need to look out for? my last vehicle didn't have power steering so i never had to do this type of work. it seems pretty straight forward. get the seals, rent a pitman puller, pull pitman, remove old seals, drain fluid, replace seals, replace pitman. anything i'm missing?

 

[baddis]

i did it on one of my old b2s. the kit comes with instructions even. i had never had one apart and it took me about 10 to 15 minutes if i remember right.

 

[crbnunit]

It is a sector shaft seal you want to replace. Clean the area throughly. Clean it again. Remove the pitman arm. Remove old dust seals and snap ring. Put a large pan under the steering box. Put newspaper/cardboard under the pan. Start the truck and turn the steering wheel all the way to one side. This will blow the seal out of the sector shaft recess. Now, clean up the mess. Clean it again. Run your finger around the recess and shaft to make sure there are no burrs that are going to tear up the new seal.

Make special tool number 000.001 from a 1.25" piece of pipe. I think you need a length of 1.25-1.5" long. This is your seal driver. Install the seal, insert the snap ring, the seal driver and use a large washer and the nut for the sector shaft to drive the seal home. Tighten the nut to drive the seal home. When you hear the snap ring pop into its groove and it gets hard to turn the nut, you are done. Install the dust shield, the Pitman arm and hook your steering back up.

Fill the reservoir with PS fluid and with the front supported by jack stands, gently turn the wheel back and forth, adding fluid as needed until the pump quietens down. Done.

 

[crusin93]

It is a sector shaft seal you want to replace. Clean the area throughly. Clean it again. Remove the pitman arm. Remove old dust seals and snap ring. Put a large pan under the steering box. Put newspaper/cardboard under the pan. Start the truck and turn the steering wheel all the way to one side. This will blow the seal out of the sector shaft recess. Now, clean up the mess. Clean it again. Run your finger around the recess and shaft to make sure there are no burrs that are going to tear up the new seal.

Make special tool number 000.001 from a 1.25" piece of pipe. I think you need a length of 1.25-1.5" long. This is your seal driver. Install the seal, insert the snap ring, the seal driver and use a large washer and the nut for the sector shaft to drive the seal home. Tighten the nut to drive the seal home. When you hear the snap ring pop into its groove and it gets hard to turn the nut, you are done. Install the dust shield, the Pitman arm and hook your steering back up.

Fill the reservoir with PS fluid and with the front supported by jack stands, gently turn the wheel back and forth, adding fluid as needed until the pump quietens down. Done.

Well done! I like this. Next time, I may try this method instead of removing the box from the truck. Check out this company for the seals. Good luck! http://www.prosteering.com/k_ford_truck.htm

 

[jeremythelee]

It is a sector shaft seal you want to replace. Clean the area throughly. Clean it again. Remove the pitman arm. Remove old dust seals and snap ring. Put a large pan under the steering box. Put newspaper/cardboard under the pan. Start the truck and turn the steering wheel all the way to one side. This will blow the seal out of the sector shaft recess. Now, clean up the mess. Clean it again. Run your finger around the recess and shaft to make sure there are no burrs that are going to tear up the new seal.

Make special tool number 000.001 from a 1.25" piece of pipe. I think you need a length of 1.25-1.5" long. This is your seal driver. Install the seal, insert the snap ring, the seal driver and use a large washer and the nut for the sector shaft to drive the seal home. Tighten the nut to drive the seal home. When you hear the snap ring pop into its groove and it gets hard to turn the nut, you are done. Install the dust shield, the Pitman arm and hook your steering back up.

Fill the reservoir with PS fluid and with the front supported by jack stands, gently turn the wheel back and forth, adding fluid as needed until the pump quietens down. Done.

sounds like some really useful stuff. i'll be sure to make that special tool to do this.

 

[crbnunit]

I tried every other method of getting that seal in without pulling the whole steering box. Not much room to work under there. I blew out three seals because the snap ring wasn't seated as well as I thought. The pressure in there is very high when trying ot turn the wheel! Makes a hell of a mess when one of those seals lets go!

Wish one of the mods would pin this as this is about the fourth time I've typed it up. LOL!

 

[jeremythelee]

this ended up taking roughly 8 hours. i didn't have a large enough socket to pull the nut off the bottom of the pitman shaft, so i did it over at a friends place. lucky for me that i ended up there. after getting everything apart, i went ahead and put the pan under the shaft and started her up. after cranking the wheel a number of times i went to take a peek, nothing happened. i tried this for a bit longer, and then called in my friend (who has more experience working on cars/trucks/tractors than i will ever hope to have) to see what he thinks. after closer inspection, he notices that the outside seal, which should be the dust seal, isn't a dust seal at all, but a line of black silicon caulk. needless to say this complicated things. he was busy watching his son so i set to work scraping off the caulk. after getting most of it off, i noticed a metal washer (indicating that the previous owner re-used the factory seals, as they used washers as spacers). after this i attempted for a second time to crank the wheel to force the seal out. still no go. so then i called my buddy in again, and we decided there must be an easier way to get this washer out, without disassembling the entire steering box. this is where things got tough. first i tried to shift the washer, hoping maybe my power steering pump just didn't produce enough pressure to blow it out. wouldn't budge an inch. then I grabbed a punch and thinking if i could at least get the washer lose, maybe it'd come out easier. so i started hammering on it trying to get it to shift backwards, nothing. by this time i was frustrated enough with it, i didn't care if it came out intact. so i grabbed a cordless drill and put a good sized hole in the side, and jammed an awl in it. after spending 30 minutes or so yanking on this awl in every which direction, it was getting late and i was about ready to give up for the day. so i drilled a hole on the opposite side, grabbed a second awl, and gave it a few more attempts using two awls, but it still wouldn't budge. so i got a ride home. today when i got there, my friend had a couple ideas, after trying to turn it with a punch, hitting the sides of the holes, we moved on to plan B. i put a self tapping screw in each hole, and grabbed two pry bars. she finally broke free, but not after putting a little english behind it. from there it was easy. pulled out the seal, which was a pretty big mess, put in the new ones, drove 'em with my home-made seal driver (credit to crbnunit), got all the gears filled, and took her home. needless to say it was pretty frustrating spending almost 6 hours getting a puny little washer out. but it's done, and i'm happy.

 

[Chrome Eternal]

New Question re: pitman (sector) shaft seal

Lol Well, after a long battle with a very stubborn snap ring, and buying 2 different pairs of snap ring pliers (neither one of which were up to the job), I made myself a little tool out of a filed-down Allen wrench gripped with a pair of Vice-Grips, and simply pulled the snap ring out manually. lol This bit of redneckgineering did what a $20 pair of snap ring pliers couldn't!

Ok, so got that out, but couldn't blow out the seals until I filled up the reservoir again, then that did the trick. Cleaned everything up then reassembled, but had to guess at which way the seal went back in - spring-side in or out? I picked "in", not sure it was right. Made a homemade seal driver per crbnunit, and pushed the whole mess back in using a 1-5/16" socket on the nut until I heard/felt the new ring click into place. Reading crbnunit's account of blowns seals due to improperly seated snap rings, I even tapped it all round with a small punch to make sure it was seated. Put pitman back on, filled up reservoir, cranked the wheel and POP! Huge mess as new PS fluid hemorrhaged all over my driveway lol At least I know the reservoir got a good flush I guess. So a new seal back in tomorrow. But which way does it go? Spring side in or out? And is there supposed to be a dust cap outside of the snap ring? Or is that the rubber flange on the washer underneath it?

For anyone doing this, don't forget to lube the shaft, bore and new seal copiously with new PS fluid, BTW.