Ross Box Overhaul

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[HEYzipupyourfly]

Finally got the ross box out of the flattie the other day and degreased the big pile of grease that it was to asses the damage.
This isn't worth reading unless you are planning to overhaul your ross box  because it does not apply to much else.

I took some pictures but left the camera in my garage so i'll post them later.

I started by removing the steering wheel which was kind of a bear but I ended up using a bearing puller behind the wheel and pressed it right off the center of the steering shaft. My horn button was already destroyed so i put a nut over it and pressed off that so i wouldn't destroy the threads.

Left fender off
removed the turn signal switch and the column support
exhaust down-pipe unbolted and slid out of the way.
drag link removed and pitman arm removed
All this came apart like gravy.

the box had 3 bolts holding it to the frame once those were removed i had to play a little Tetris to weave it out beside the engine block and around the front axle and suspension (the box and column are as one piece)
Once out it was a large ball of grease.

upon pulling the cover off some chunks fell out. one being the little knubbin that rides on the worm gear inside. I sheared it clean off
getting it out of the woods seemed to have marred the worm a little too. I may or may not replace that.

A email into Jeff at crown had some replacement parts here for Monday.  By far the cheapest I could find too thanks jeff!
One picture of the new sector shaft and the old one you can see the shaft is worn a bit.

they look like a different size in this picture but they are not.

thats all for now got to get my pictures and order some more parts.

[HEYzipupyourfly]

I can pretty confidently say that the fact that this box was pumped full of standard bearing grease rather than a gear oil or heavy wieghted oil was probably the main reason it did not last.
There is a small oil port that allows oil access to the sector shaft bushings and unless you were to pump grease into the zerk untill you saw grease coming out of the seal on the pitman arm every couple times it was used, than those two bushings were getting zero lubrication. The sector shaft had an easy .010-.015 play because of the wear on the bushing surface. which would have helped to wear out those two fweebles and the worm gear prematurely.

When i took it all apart there was a tiny bit of grease that made its way through the small hole but never made its way onto the bushing surface. i had to run a wire through the hole to unclog it. Before i install the new bushings I am going to open that hole up and chamfer the edges to allow more oil to flow into that area easier than before(there is plenty of meat in the casing to allow this). Because that outboard bushing takes a bit of abuse having the pitman Right there I want to be sure it gets all the oil it needs.

[Posimoto]

I can pretty confidently say that the fact that this box was pumped full of standard bearing grease rather than a gear oil or heavy wieghted oil was probably the main reason it did not last.

I don’t believe it was the main reason the box failed, but I do believe it was the third of three reasons it failed.

This is typically how it goes with Ross boxes. In 1946 the Ross box was filled with 140 weight oil and most likely stayed in service for 30 years before the bronze or babbitt faced bushings and seals began to wear and leak. Were in the 70s now, and chances are the owner didn’t have or couldn’t find the proper 140 weight oil so he added 90w gear fluids.

The box now has 140w and topped off with 90w. After 10 years of leaking and adding 90w there wasn’t much 140w in the box. The now 40 year old seals that leaked 140w oil is now pissing out 90w.

What some folks did to “fix” the leaking seals was to add grease. Obviously the heavier grease would stop the leaks and this would work for several years without noticing any issues. However, heavy grease gets pushed around by the worm gear and doesn’t lube the box as it should and eventually will show wear where as heavy weight fluid gives better coverage in terms of friction reduction. The correct approach would have been to replace the bushing and seals when leaks were first discovered.

It’s the same deal with closed knuckles, the felt seal leaks over time and doesn’t hold 140w fluid so most add grease instead of replacing the felt seal. 
 
I believe the main cause of most all Ross box failures is not replacing the worn bushings and seals. The second reason for failure in this particular case is adding a front locker and 34” tires to a 66 year old stock Ross steering setup it’s just too must stress and torque on a muti-linked poor designed system.

The proper fluid to use is Penrite about $17 for 1/3 pint or you can use cornhead grease about $4 a tube.

Hope this helps

[HEYzipupyourfly]

gotchya. that may be the case with some of these. but i think your thinking they last 60 years without a rebuild. which might be the case with some.
agreed replacing those bushing would be the right thing to do in the case of the leaks... actually just replacing that sector shaft seal would probably work fine if there is no play in the bushings. and just the seal could be done in the vehicle. What i was mainly getting at is that the grease as thick as it was never actually made its way to those bushing surfaces. and after taking the thing apart i can see those bushings have been replaced quite a few times (or just once but by a cave man with a large rock)


looking at the way the thing works it pretty much lives and dies by the contact between the worm and the two "fweebles"
if the sector shaft is able to rock you will never have even contact and, "yes" years of abuse and wrong lubrication  etc etc didn't help but was probably better than no grease at all. I do still think that by putting grease in one of these your actually going to do more harm than good.

[Posimoto]

I mentioned the seals would typically start leaking around 30 years, much sooner depending on circumstances. There would be a need to rebuild at least twice within 60 years, again more often depending on the circumstances. 

I’ve owned many Willys trucks, wagons, and CJs the majority of the Ross boxes were low to empty, and most were not rebuilt.

Anyway, looks like your doing a good and thorough job on this rebuild.

[HEYzipupyourfly]

ok finally got some pictures up. Sorry they are cell phone picture quality.
After taking the whole thing part and cleaning up all the grease I did open up that oiling hole for the sector shaft bushings by drilling it out.


The new bushings that came with the sector shaft did not have a press fit, they actually had about .001" clearance fit. So i knurled the outside of them and installed them with some green loc-tite. After it set, I had to run a hone through them so that the sector shaft would slip in smoothly.

I de-burred the worm because it had some nicks in it from the broken chunks floating around. then greased it up and started to install the bearings.


Greased with some mobil wheel grease.
-Slipped it into place and it was tight so i had to install a few extra shims under the upper bearing retainer.


installed the sector shaft.
I massaged a tiney bit of the right stuff into the paper gasket and installed the cover on the side of the box. I also threw away the lock washers and replaced them with a regular flat washer, for the side cover bolts.

While i was in here i figured i would replace the chaffed wire that runs up the shaft. So i soldered it onto the contact plate and cleaned up the brush plate that installs on the outer tube. Because maybe. Someday. I might make the horn work again.


Primed and painted, she is almost ready to be installed.
I still have to replace the bearing at the top on the shaft.
The hardest part of this rebuild, i would say is finding the parts, which isn't even that hard. You just have to know where to find them.
Hoping to get this thing into the truck some time next week and make it to the Nov run.

[Posimoto]

 

[jps4jeep]

Nice

[HEYzipupyourfly]

So getting the box back into its home was more like playing snake, or Tetris. I had a real tough time getting it into place until I removed the sector shaft adjuster screw which was the 1/4" that I needed and it slip it by the frame and right into place.I put the bolts in loosely.

Once i got the shaft bolted in at the dash i tightened the frame mount bolts.
You can see i removed quite a bit of paint trying to get it onto place.



Another quick call into Jeff at Crown this morning and I should have the upper bearing and horn switch tomorrow afternoon and should be able to get her buttoned up before the weekend.

It hasn't been started in a while and when i started i found that the pump would not syphon any fuel so I replaced the filter and made a new gasket for the glass bowl and it sucked the fuel right up and started like a champ.




I also installed the pitman arm and attached the drag link.

[j-dawg]

nice work tony...

[HEYzipupyourfly]

thanks, just got to get the heater working now and i should be ready for this weekends run.