The steering box on my '78 Spider won't hold its oil, apparently the seal is bad (33 years old with no maintenance). It was suggested that I pack it with heavy gear grease to get me by until I can budget in a new one. Anyone have info on how I do this? Is there a zirk fitting on the box somewhere? If so, is it accessible without too much wrenching?
TIA

there is no zirk fitting on the steering box. (not intended for grease). there is a 1/4" square pipe plug on the top and grease could be applied thru there. my thought would be to use a lighter grease than wheel bearing grease. maybe lithium.

azruss wrote:there is no zirk fitting on the steering box. (not intended for grease). there is a 1/4" square pipe plug on the top and grease could be applied thru there. my thought would be to use a lighter grease than wheel bearing grease. maybe lithium.

Thanks! I'll check out the lithium idea. That will probably be easier for me to access, as well.

The mod is detailed here: http://mirafiori.com/faq/content/steridler.html

manoa matt wrote:The mod is detailed here: http://mirafiori.com/faq/content/steridler.html

This seems to be more for the damper (idler) mounted under the hood over on the passenger side than the box itself, maybe?

Several of the vendors carry the input and output shaft seals. Only a couple bucks each, of course you need to remove the box to install them.

manoa matt wrote:Several of the vendors carry the input and output shaft seals. Only a couple bucks each, of course you need to remove the box to install them.

Thanks, Matt. I'll probably wait until I can afford to put in a new one if I'm going to remove it anyway.

It is possible to remove and install a new lower seal with the box in the car. The main issue is removing the pitman arm from the output shaft. I recently tried to do this on 2 separate steering boxes and could not remove the pitman arm despite having soaked the interface of the shaft and arm with PB blaster for 3 days and having the correct pitman arm puller. The cast iron pitman arm puller started to bend and I gave up trying to remove the arm before I broke the tool. The seals were not leaking, I just needed to remove the arm so it would fit in a smaller box to save the buyer some shipping costs.