Rebuilt Steering Gears

I rebuild a ton of steering gears for guys on here and port them. Lately I have had a hard time finding enough cores. I bit the bullet and went and bought 3 reman'd units from my local auto parts store. I pulled them completely apart and drilled and tapped them. When I went to put them back together I found that none of the three boxes had the right number of recirculating balls. There are supposed to be 12 large and 12 small. No box had more than 23 balls with one only having 21 and the numbers of large and small were random. Luckily I have a supply of the balls and was able to get them set up correctly, but beware of the shoddy work being done, most likely in China.

Also none of the bearings had been replaced. You can tell the original bearings from the newer ones.

I'm glad yours has more balls than theirs.

Is this one of the generic auto parts, or a high dollar store?

Curious as to who reman'd them.

good job on the ball supply!

This was Autozone.

go figure... I ported an autozone one... never looked at how many balls were inside.

old_man said:

This was Autozone.

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But they have a lifetime warrantee!!!! - haha.

Justpunchit said:

go figure... I ported an autozone one... never looked at how many balls were inside.

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I hope you at least took it apart after you drilled it out. Did you alternate the large and small ball when you put it back together?

Ronbo said:

But they have a lifetime warrantee!!!! - haha.

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Like they are going to do that after I punch a couple of holes in it :twak:

old_man said:

I hope you at least took it apart after you drilled it out. Did you alternate the large and small ball when you put it back together?

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I think i did. I followed a billavista write up on it IIRC.

old_man said:

Like they are going to do that after I punch a couple of holes in it :twak:

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You'd be surprised on what AZ takes back.. I've had take them back GM alternators to warranty out my jeep ones. Yj radiators for XJ's. Most of the help out my way gets paid maybe 9 bucks an hour to work the counter. They just care it's a part that goes in a box back to the DC.