steering and suspension Grooving in worm gear - Steering Box

[rapandi]

Hi,

 

I have just pulled apart my steering box so as to clean it up, put new seals etc and put it back together. Notice the grooving in the gears. Reading on the forum has revealed that this grooving is part of the wear and tear process but when would you consider it to be too much? Is there anything that I should do to these gears before putting it back in the box?

 

Just wanted to check with the forum to see if I should do anything more then just the standard replace seals, gaskets and oil. 

 

Thanks

 

Raj

 

 

 

[arminyack]

Looks ok to me from these pics....pitting is the real enemy! And consider using Pentrite Steering Box lube as opposed to oil...it a 1200w grease that wont leak. When I rebuilt mine I switched to this, and never looked back

Edited September 19, 2016 by arminyack

[rapandi]

14 minutes ago, arminyack said:

Looks ok to me from these pics....pitting is the real enemy! And consider using Pentrite Steering Box lube as opposed to oil...it a 1200w grease that wont leak. When I rebuilt mine I switched to this, and never looked back

Thanks for tip on the 1200W. 

[AceAndrew]

Responded to your PM.

 

One note regarding grease.  You can use it in conjunction with the oil, but try not to leave the oil out.  The grease has a tendency to not stick around the bearings and while you won't see wear in the near term, you most certainly will in the long term.  In addition, the pivoting motion tends to expose the mating surfaces over time (encouraging pitting).  I'm making a some-what educated guess that these reasons are why ZF called to have the assembly fully submerged in oil.  

 

Not to say the box wouldn't last several years like that, but as we've seen well-maintained boxes still have life left after fourty years!

[rapandi]

46 minutes ago, AceAndrew said:

Responded to your PM.

 

One note regarding grease.  You can use it in conjunction with the oil, but try not to leave the oil out.  The grease has a tendency to not stick around the bearings and while you won't see wear in the near term, you most certainly will in the long term.  In addition, the pivoting motion tends to expose the mating surfaces over time (encouraging pitting).  I'm making a some-what educated guess that these reasons are why ZF called to have the assembly fully submerged in oil.  

 

Not to say the box wouldn't last several years like that, but as we've seen well-maintained boxes still have life left after fourty years!

I see where you are coming from with regards to not omitting the oil altogether. I too feel that the oil would help as it is of a much lower viscosity. Thank you for the information. 

[TobyB]

Yep, looks ok to me, too.  Shiny, but no pitting.

A long time ago, GM used to sell a grease that you ADDED to the oil-

it thickened the oil, but not to the point that it cavitated off the gear.

Others have mixed oil and grease- if you found a solvent mix, that might work.

But I second Andrew's opinion that grease by itself won't 'wet' the works, and that

will be worse in the long run.

 

t

 

[rapandi]

Thanks Toby for the input

[arminyack]

There's an ongoing argument over on the Alfa forums (Alfabb) about this very subject....with one side against it based on the points made above, and the other side consisting of guys who sucked out the old, grimy oil 20+ years ago, and replaced it with the heavy weight oil, and had never had an issue.

[jimk]

17 hours ago, arminyack said:

Pentrite Steering Box lube as opposed to oil...it a 1200w grease

Looked it up, it's a NGLI 00 (semi-fluid) grease.  I don't think 1200w is real nomenclature.  Normal chasis and multi-purposes greases are NGLI 2.  I've posted on here before about semi-fluid grease for steering boxes.  It's used in leaky gear boxes.

[AceAndrew]

As long as the box is filled up so that the assembly is submerged it should be fine.  

 

Took a box apart about six months ago that had the grease rubbed on and left that way (driven for at least several years this way .... don't know how long exactly though).  There was pitting on the bearings that was expressly related to not coming into contact with lube.