- Location
- Encinitas, Ca
Look at the 1:45 mark in this video....Are you talking about a spanner wrench?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661ov4GIXAA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661ov4GIXAA
Warlock, thanks for the information. So the Lares guy is full of it? He told me that if I ordered the "plow" version, that I'd get the bigger bore. The impression I got when I spoke with the guy was that he kept wanting to make excuses. First he asked me how do I know its the wrong part. I told him because the bore is smaller and it requires more force to turn the tyres. He said that I must have bled the system incorrectly and that there is air stuck in the gear box. I then told him that it isn't THAT stiff, it just feels like I have a wimpy gear box in the vehicle, like when I had an original Jeep Cherokee box. He then told me that I ordered the wrong part then. If I wanted the big bore, I needed to order the unit with the "plow" option. He said that Durangos without he snow plow could come with the plow gear box. I told him that this condition makes ordering difficult.
I wasn't quite convinced with him so I called a place in Canada that rebuilds gear boxes. The owner there said that Dodge Durango's always had these larger bore 4.22" boxes (Saginaw 708 with casting stamp size stamp 055), never the 3.82" bores that I received from Lares. He also said that it has become really difficult to find the '98/99 Durango boxes. Because of this, he speculated that these larger reman companies just ship out whatever bolts up.
Now it is also possible that Lares just decided on their own that "plow" = larger bore, and "non-plow" = smaller bore and will in-fact mail out the larger bore version if we select "plow" when ordering? Anyone ordered the plow version from Lares?
I put the pitman shaft seals in the Durango box and will test it out. One thing to watch out for is that you can press in the inner shaft seal in quite a bit further up than the snap ring position, perhaps one whole washer space worth. I didn't pound the seal that hard. Hope its OK. Seems like it would be more ideal to have the inner seal reseting on the snap right, but now there is this 1/16" gap between them. Anyone else run into this?
About the 3 turns vs. 3.5 turns, wouldn't 3 turns be preferred? At 3.5 turns, you will definitely hit the stops on the knuckle before hitting the stops in the gear box. This may put more stress on your chassis as the box tries to turn past the knuckle stop, thus causing chassis flexing and tears.
I did a small test on my leaking PSC box, and yes it looks like you can replace the steering output shaft seals without taking the worm gear out. The challenge is finding something to hold ring nut without gashing it in a vise. Unless we can also remove the shaft from the box as well, yet leave the worm gear in place so that bearings to fall out. I was reluctant to pull out the steering shaft as well, but if it can safely come out, then the ring nut can be held in place inside the gear box. Can the steering output shaft also be removed without an involved rebuild?Is it possible to replace the outer seal and dust cap on the steering shaft side of the gear box without having to remove the worm gear, bearings, and piston? There is this informative youtube which another user posted, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661ov4GIXAA , but the guy removes all the guts to replace all the seals. I was hoping to avoid that for now.