Hello all,
This weekend I took on the challenge of pulling my steering box out and replacing the input shaft seal, which recently had started hemorrhaging even more ATF than usual. I spent three days removing the box, replacing the seal, diligently cleaning and repainting the box, and reinstalling it. Despite my best efforts to mark the correct positioning of the input shaft pinion in relation to the universal joint, all the wrestling about with it combined with copious amounts of ATF and Liquid Wrench caused the sharpie marks I made to rub off, which made it difficult to determine where to reinsert the pinion into the universal joint. I did the best I could and got it lined up as square as I could, but when I took it for a test drive it was clear I missed it, since I had to keep the steering wheel about 20-30 degrees to the right to drive in a straight line. I compensated for this by detaching the drag link from the drop arm and unscrewing the tie rod end a couple times, which extended the drag link and straightened out the steering wheel, but I'm worried that this was basically me "touching up the x-rays" and doesn't actually fix some problem that I might have caused.
I plan on taking it in for a proper alignment ASAP, but I'm wondering if there's any significant issue with my missing the original orientation of the input shaft into the universal joint. Is this a mistake that can be corrected after the fact with alignment adjustment, or removing and repositioning the drop arm? I absolutely do not want to have to take that steering box out again any time soon, but I don't know much about the finer geometry of steering systems, and I'm concerned that this is causing an unforeseen problem that can't simply be fixed by alignment adjustment.
On the plus side, however, I haven't seen a drop of ATF leaking from the input shaft, where it was previously pouring out. This was the most in-depth repair I've done so far on the Discovery 1, and it's given me a lot of confidence to keep working on her. That is, of course, if I don't have to junk her for catastrophic steering failure...
1996 Discovery SD.
This weekend I took on the challenge of pulling my steering box out and replacing the input shaft seal, which recently had started hemorrhaging even more ATF than usual. I spent three days removing the box, replacing the seal, diligently cleaning and repainting the box, and reinstalling it. Despite my best efforts to mark the correct positioning of the input shaft pinion in relation to the universal joint, all the wrestling about with it combined with copious amounts of ATF and Liquid Wrench caused the sharpie marks I made to rub off, which made it difficult to determine where to reinsert the pinion into the universal joint. I did the best I could and got it lined up as square as I could, but when I took it for a test drive it was clear I missed it, since I had to keep the steering wheel about 20-30 degrees to the right to drive in a straight line. I compensated for this by detaching the drag link from the drop arm and unscrewing the tie rod end a couple times, which extended the drag link and straightened out the steering wheel, but I'm worried that this was basically me "touching up the x-rays" and doesn't actually fix some problem that I might have caused.
I plan on taking it in for a proper alignment ASAP, but I'm wondering if there's any significant issue with my missing the original orientation of the input shaft into the universal joint. Is this a mistake that can be corrected after the fact with alignment adjustment, or removing and repositioning the drop arm? I absolutely do not want to have to take that steering box out again any time soon, but I don't know much about the finer geometry of steering systems, and I'm concerned that this is causing an unforeseen problem that can't simply be fixed by alignment adjustment.
On the plus side, however, I haven't seen a drop of ATF leaking from the input shaft, where it was previously pouring out. This was the most in-depth repair I've done so far on the Discovery 1, and it's given me a lot of confidence to keep working on her. That is, of course, if I don't have to junk her for catastrophic steering failure...
1996 Discovery SD.