What I thought would be a fun, few-hour project turned into a whole day with nothing worthwhile to show!

It all started with me observing that the steering box was leaking at the bottom...not a gradual drip but a big leak. And the steering column in the box had a slight freeplay.

So, I ordered repair kit which included two brass bushings and upper and lower oil seals.

To make everything short, after finally removing the stubborn old bushings, I put in the new ones. But when I tried to slip in the internal steering shaft back through the bushings, it just won't budge! I couldn't even get the spliced end in. I even tried tapping with a hammer with care of not damaging the steering box cover, but still no luck coaxing it through.

Already the top bushing has markings from my attempts to shove the shaft thru.


I did expect that the thickness of the new bushings would make it an effort to slide in the internal steering shaft, but to the point of damaging the bushing and the risk of damaging the steering box cover with tapping? That didn't make any sense.

What did I go wrong? I tried to look for steering box repair procedures, but I couldn't find what I needed. Many thanks in advance for your advice/help!

-DS