Oaky8

I have been putting up with awful steering in my 1982 rx7 for the last year (only owned it for a 1.5 years) so its time to fix it. I tried the write up on adjusting the steering box last week. It made the steering wheel feel tighter, but did not actually fix my 4 inch dead spot at all. I had a worn out dust boot on an inner tie rod end, replaced that yesterday. Still no improvement. Today I took off the head on the steering box, I found that the small sector shaft preload adjusting screw was somehow snapped in half. I now need to figure out if the lower part of that screw is removable or if i need to pull out the entire sector shaft and replace it. How that screw had so much pressure put on it to snap i have no idea. But i know exactly when it did snap a year ago.

t_g_farrell

iTrader: (1)

Keep us posted.

Oaky8

Today I pulled the pitman arm and slid the sector shaft up out of the steering box. Came out real easy. I do have a puddle of fresh gear oil on the driveway now, spilled more than I caught in my funnel.

Here are some pictures. It seems like I will indeed need a new sector shaft. So I'll go yank one today. The adjustment screw is a separate piece from the shaft, but it was probably hot pressed in or there is some threads somewhere on the cup that holds it, but I'm betting heat pressed. I'll do some searching before going to pull the new sector shaft.

site here shows that the sector shaft screw simply slides into a space , however mine is not like that. I did vise grip the shiny cup that holds the screw in and I was able to turn the section my thumb sits on in the last picture. It doesn't appear to be threaded however.

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

The Mitchell site shows the SA-style box, with the slotted adjustment screw and free needle bearings atop the sector shaft. You have an FB-style box with caged roller bearings up top. Very different design, less prone to wear.

Top of the SA-style sector shaft:



Needle bearings inside the top cover, held in place only by gear oil surface tension:

Oaky8

Yeah, I figured that. Thanks tho.
Went and got a box today, well I left the input shaft and all of the recirculating ball stuff. I'll just take out that sector shaft and put into my box.

I might try heating up my old shaft to see if I can pull that stupid screw out, for research mostly. May help the next poor sucker that does have a snapped screw.

t_g_farrell

iTrader: (1)

Dammit! I hate threads like this, now I want to go take my SA steering box apart to make sure
its ok. I redid all my front end stuff recently and its a lot tighter but the play is there a bit.

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

If you pull the top cover off an SA box while it's still on the car, you stand a pretty good chance of dropping needle bearings all over the floor - - or worse, down into the steering box itself, where you might be unable to retrieve them without removal & disassembly. Reassembly could be 'fun.'

Plan accordingly. By which I mean, have beer handy for diluting the tears of frustration.

Gear lube holds them in place but not real firmly, and once one falls out, the tension slacks and others follow.

Oaky8

Those needle bearings seem like a pain, but I'd much rather have the slotted screw space. Today I got the new shaft in. Just took it for a drive around the block, and its a lot better. It's still a little loose, feels about as connected as a power steering box in a new domestic sedan. I'll fine tune it more as it settles. One thing to note for anyone doing this after me: my two sector shafts actually are a slight bit different. My rx7 is an 82 is from January, the donor is also an 82 but from later on in the year like december. The sector shafts are little different in the area where the tapered roller bearings seat. My early shaft has a removable bearing set, it just slides off no problem. The later shaft seems to have a lip. This makes the bearing set install a one way deal it seems; maybe with a little ingenuity you could slide in a piece of paper between the shaft and the bearings. I didn't try to take the bearings off too much. The bearing housing ring itself is are little different as well. I installed the new shaft into my old box using the old top plate. I drove the car after this and it still felt loose. I had noticed while adjusting the settings that the large sector shaft adjustment wasn't doing much. So I replaced the cup with the new one and that seemed to make it better. I wrote that out in a confusing matter, if you need me to explain more/better just ask.

rk970

iTrader: (1)

Yes the SA and FB boxes are very different. Seems all the adjustment procedures only relate to the SA box.

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generati...ments-1055752/

Oaky8

Your shaft looks similar to my first shaft. How hard was it to remove the bearings? or did they just slide off?

rk970

iTrader: (1)

IIRC just slides off.