Thread: Reversed corvair steering box question???

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Hopefully someone on here can help me out.
I have a 63 aluminum cased corvair steering box that I reveresed. Everything turned out great but my seal was leaking grease out of it at the input shaft to seal area. I replaced the seal with a brand new one and it still leaks out grease. The seal is seated tight and properly within the "cap" and the seal to shaft contact area is real tight. The seal was hard to slide over the input shaft so I figured it would fix the leaking. When I reversed the box I filled the whole case full of GM steering box grease. I am thinking that maybe the case should not be filled completely and there is too much grease in the case and when the worm gear moves toward the the cap it forces grease out through the seal. So should the steering box be full of grease or should it be 1/4, 1/2 full, or something like that?

Thanks in advance,
Thomas

I think you may have hit it when you say it was overfilled. I have a Flaming River reproduction reversed Corvair box on my T and am on the second one in two years. The first one dumped all of it's grease out of the same input shaft seal you are having issues with, to the point it got very stiff. I swapped it out for a new one with Flaming River, and the new box does the same thing.....red grease is coming out the shaft seal.

Flaming River really never had a good explanation to give me, which disappointed me somewhat. This second box seems to have finally stopped pumping grease out, so maybe it has reached the amount it wants inside.

I have sent you a PM with a guy on another forums address. He builds these Corvair reversed boxes and sells them, so he has a lot of knowledge about them. I didn't want to post his address on an open forum without his permission, but I'm sure he won't mind you getting in touch with him on a one on one basis.

Don

One issue might be if it's real close to the exhaust. It may be getting hot and the grease is melting and then leaking out the seal. Just a thought.

Hey Don, I got ahold of the one guy you told me to get ahold of and he said he never used the GM grease but uses chassis grease instead and fills the box up pretty full. Otherwise there was no explanation as to why it is leaking out grease. I guess maybe shaft wear or the fact that the GM grease isn't as thick as the chassis grease.
Thanks for the contact info., now at least I know how much grease should be in the box and a possible solution.

Originally Posted by dmw56

One issue might be if it's real close to the exhaust. It may be getting hot and the grease is melting and then leaking out the seal. Just a thought.

As of now it is not on the car and is leaking just sitting around the house
However, when it is on the car it will sit within half an inch of the exhaust manifold and there could be some problems there.
Thanks for the tip.

Thomas

I used one of these on my bucket and used the Ford spec grease and didn't fill it totally full. I used the Ford spec because it has a higher viscosity rating then the rest of the 'standard' chassis/wheel bearing lubes. The seal never leaked. The original cast iron gear that I bought from Total Performance - leaked, but not too badly and it was over filled. These Corvair gear boxes are rack and sector rather then the recirculating ball that most steering boxes have so do need some room to move where the ball type just follow a closed sheet metal cage.