04 blazer project

thanks, it sure feels more rigid at least.
i've been standing on the basket to bolt up the spare and no worrisome flexing anymore.

oh and i bet your s-series cant do this.

You'd be surprised.  I just have to back it up.

Needs baja fenders now. Bolt on fronts and graft the bedsides onto the rear.

would be nice, but cant justify that at all when these fenders are in good shape.

got my new ebay steering joint today, put it in, havent driven it yet but it sure looks good.

old rag joint had a ton of play too...

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10103729119601243&l=5748185444664077404

so review of new joint:

in low speed and force inputs like when driving down a straight road, slight steering corrections: very little change. all the slop here is in the steering box.

in parking lots/turns  (high force inputs where the slop is all preloaded out in one direction) made a huge difference. pretty happy there.

unfortunately i really want to get rid of the deadband slop during straightline driving.

i added a 1/4 turn of preload in the adjuster set screw thing, got no difference as well.
i need to look into that a little more and see exactly what it does....

http://www.fourwheeler.com/how-to/transmission-drivetrain/129-0801-saginaw-steering-box-rebuild/photo-gallery/#1

That's something that's been bothering me for a while now. We use ball-nuts on aircraft as well, they call it the rack piston, but it's a ball nut in aviation. And we've gone completely away from the recirculating ball bearing style because of problems with them being inconsistent and wearing the screw shafts. From cargo locators to flap actuators, they've all been converted to a solid nut with a bit of elastomer to seal the ends and they're so much more precise it's unbelievable. I'll see if I can't get some pictures of a cargo locator if we have one sitting around, they're only about twice as big as these, unlike the flap actuators we do that are 4" screw shafts.

well, corner weighed the blazer because i was curious.
full DD trim with spare on roof, random shit in back, no driver.

25% 26% 51% Fr
24% 25% 49% Rr
49% 51% 100%
Left Right

1066 1094 2160
1003 1041 2044
2069 2135 4204

Damn....

Just googling saginaw gears tonight. I assume you kept your original box for $30 to practice rebuilding?

http://www.earlycj5.net/forums/showthread.php?53495-Saginaw-Gear-Box-adjustment

The later manuals warn against adjusting the gear mesh before you adjust the end play. In big, bold letters - do not adjust gear mesh unless you adjust end play first. I'd believe the manual.

There are two adjustments - the big nut on the steering shaft end adjusts the end play of the worm gear. The screw on top of the box adjusts the sector shaft gear and worm gear mesh. If you adjust the screw without adjusting the end play, you're basically pushing the worm gear sideways in its bearings to remove the end play. This could be bad.

JMO - play it safe and follow the instructions in the Jeep factory service manual. You can maybe take shortcuts, like disconnecting the tie rod and steering shaft and leaving the box on the frame, but don't skip any steps or change the order of operations.

<edit> My '77 manual addresses adjustment directly, but it looks like the '76 and earlier manuals do not. Basically, they only cover complete disassembly and reassembly. Here's an '82 manual that covers adjustment: http://oljeep.com/gw/82_tsm/Part%202%20Section%20L.pdf It's not a very good scan, but the same warning is there that is in my '77 manual: "Always adjust wormshaft bearing preload <big nut on the steering shaft end> first; then adjust pitman shaft overcenter drag torque <little screw on top> last."

The link was dead, I found what he was talking about and updated it. Its the Jeep factory service manual. Good read on the internals. The text around Fig 2L-5 makes me wonder if you could remove material from your pitman shaft sector and increase the ratio.


http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=129288

Absolutely do NOT try and eliminate the off-center clearance that you might notice when rotating the input shaft of your steering gear. There is designed-in clearance in the gear set off center. If you eliminate the off-center clearance you will damage the gear set when it tries to return to center.

The correct procedure is to remove the gear from the car. Tip the gear upside down and stroke it lock to lock to eliminate most of the fluid inside the gear.

Then use the following instructions:

http://jimshea.corvettefaq.com/wp-co...epairPics4.doc

Jim

Some other discussion in threads assumes that the input gear is worn more in the center due to spending most of its life there. It would be interesting to measure the parts if you do try rebuilding.

haha nope. it was $35 so i had to return it as core.
plus it was oozing fluid everywhere.

Sorry, I'm pretty sick of replacing steering gears on the blazer. I hope to never have to do it again unless I need an astro box if i ever go sfa

Ahhh Jim Shea.  That was the name/site I was trying to remember in the other thread.  He has lots of great information on the Saginaw boxes as I believe he was an Engineer for Saginaw Gear.

http://jimshea.corvettefaq.com/

made some changes


and currently going through and replacing the rest of the front end parts. 4 proforged ball joints are now here, waiting on 4 new timken wheel bearings too.

light update: fuel pump died, right around 130k miles, so not unexpected, just sucked it was when i was at work which is now near an hour away.
luckily Harley lives close by and is super helpful, thanks Harley!

now has a Walbro GCA758-2 (255lph) http://www.summitracing.com/parts/vpn-gca758-2
in there.
direct bolt-in swap, no cutting, no mods, no anything. super easy once you drop the tank, which is not easy.

oh and looks like ive been slacking on updates here.


went from this

to this


and added this

Winches are awesome, they completely change your view on where you can go off road!

Ohhhhh brand new battery tray.  Where did you purchase it?

I didn't mention it when I saw it in person, but I like the bumper cut out.  Is that for access to the controls?

amazon of course, and yup, for clutch access and visual of the drum

Nice winch! Did you have to add a second battery?

nope, i don't see a need to at the moment.

I bent the winch plate already though.... I've been conversing with the guy that designed it to make it better.
it was design-flawed.