engine and drivetrain Steering box leak

[ToddK]

I have been tearing down a front subframe. The steering box seems very nice and I think I want to reuse it. One whole side is covered with oil. Is it common for these to leak fluid, or is this just engine oil that settled in a strange spot? Can you get a new gasket for the top cover? Can you get the black seals on the side? Can you work on these, or are these black boxes only to be opened by highly trained techs? If that's the case, then I better find one to destroy first, cause I'm goin in.

[KFunk]

Yeah its common for them to leak. Just see if the oil is stank nasty (gear oil), then you'll know its from the steering box and not something else.

A lot of people jusr keep pouring in the oil regularly. I did that for a while, but its nasty havin that gear oil leak all over my suspension. It managed to completely destroy my left inner control arm bushings.

The seals are still listed on realoem.com, so you could prolly grab the part number and get them from the dealer.

I just replaced mine with one from a junkyard, since mine was out of adjustment anyways.

I dissected my old one the other day, and it seems simple enough. If you wanna take it apart, you will want it out of the car and on the bench. Takes just a few minutes to get it all the way apart. Where the steering coupler goes in, it goes to the worm gear, which has a taper bearing on each side and a rubber seal on the rear side (maybe leaking?). You can take the top off after removing the bolts and locking adjusting nut, and smacking it with a hammer, and spinning it around the adjustment stud. The cover on the front comes off with just a few bolts (two are allen). Removing it will allow you to move the worm gear a little, and a bearing to fall out, but the worm gear shouldn't come out yet. To get the gears fully out, you'll need to remove the pittman arm and take the shaft out. For that, you'll need to pry up a thin metal piece that locks the giant nut in place. Then put a huge 32mm wrench on it, and it pops off easy. Then you gotta really smack the pittman arm with a sledge hammer onto the side, to knock it off. We sat it on an anvil and beat it really hard (hitting side to shock it). A puller might work too.

Then yeah, you'll have all the gears out and its no mystery. The pittman arm just sits on a huge shaft, which has a little pulley mounted vertically on it at the top. The pulley rides on the worm gear. As you spin the worm gear, the pulley gets pushed and pulled back and forth, and rotates the shaft with it. I could get pics of mine if you want, its still sitting in the garage in pieces.

[Brandon]

Many times oil will leak from the red fill plug on top of the box. I'd check to see how that fits. Otherwise the seals do commonly leak. Also, take note of how far in the adjusting bolt is on top of the box. If it is in most or all of the way, then try to source another box that isn't as worn and has more bolt sticking up still...

[BLUNT]

heres what you need to reseal the box

32-11-2-670-107- 4.80

32-11-2-670-110-19.30

32-11-1-110-269-16.90

those are dealer list prices.

[robspeed]

BMW recommends packing the steering boxes with CV joint grease to achieve end of leakage where you dont want to bother taking it all apart. just a thought. remember when it stops leaking on its own, its out of fluid!

[H_Krix]

CV Grease? Every other comment i've heard about this has said Gear oil (Hypoid 90? I have to confess i'm not familiar with it...)

I can see how CV grease may be good if you packed the whole box with it, but it may load up and overuse the grease around the gears only, without the viscosity of the gear oil...

I'm in the middle of rebuilding my box right now, so i'm looking into this also.