The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, notice how the clip that the pencil points to has the threaded hole slightly off center? The wide side faces the outside of the tunnel, and the narrow side faces the shifter hole opening.

[roy mawbey]

Some of the extractors for the steering box arms look really strong but I looked at the ZF factory instruction and there was tool shown I photo below. Looks very neat. How much room to use it though under the car?

I noticed to on the strip down instruction I have, the ZF has no drain plug for the SAE 90 oil? Therefore the mention of filling with grease instead of oil from below would be impossible unless they meant the older VW type box. I guess also these days the 356 special tools are now no longer available?

Has anyone on here filled a ZF box with worm and peg movement with grease and if so was it successful and how did they do it?




Drew mentioned the Millers product produced for steering boxes. I wonder if its a heavier viscosity which might hold back at the seals better? But without removing the box I can't drain it can I Jack?

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Roy
"But without removing the box I can't drain it can I Jack?"
That's what rotisseries are for
There are some good threads on the R forum on the ZF box. Several experts warn about using grease. Others have used it with no apparent ill effect. There was mention of a "special" grease that works well.
Ab Tiedemann makes a clone of the factory tool. I can provide his email address. Calls his business(hobby) Afterwerks.
The puller Bruce shows on the left of his 3 above is similar to the factory tool and sold by several vendors over here.

Phil

[Jack Staggs]

Roy, I've put grease in a few over the years, never seemed to be any problems... but less than stellar. We turned the steering all the way to one side and suctioned out as much oil as we could, and filled repeatedly with grease in an attempt to fill the voids. Still leaked a little, but not as much.
These days, with the value of the cars as it is, we just pull the box and fit new seals. Costs a few hundred buck$ to take it all apart, clean it, and adjust everything per my previous post. Doesn't seem to be excessive to do every 30 to 50 years.
Upper seal I can do in situ, if the lower is hanging in there. Problem is, it's usually the lower seal leaking, as the upper seal only has to hold back a little bit of oil due to the angled nature of the steering box and lower location of the fill plug, while the lower seal is constantly being chewed away every time you turn the steering wheel by the inevitable detritus that migrates there due to gravity. Have been unable to master that, thus far. Leaks can also occur around the lid, and the shim stack.

PS: It is truly remarkable how tight the Allen head fill plug can get in a very short time! Be sure to scrape out all the road dirt and crud to allow full purchase of the Allen wrench before loosening.

[Phil Planck]

As with everything on Foam Car, the heater valves were in bad shape. Started disassembling one:



Uh, valve a little leaky:


Take it apart:


Fix it:


Media blast it:


All parts blasted:



Ditto for the other can and top coat:


Heater system components now ready to install:

[John Pierce]

Looks great Phil.

BTW: that's a LOT of Starburst!! Be sure to brush your teeth

[Jack Staggs]

Note to all: Be sure to carefully straighten the ubiquitous bent operating shafts and test operation, before welding it all together, Keep heat away from the internal return spring, or you will be adding an external one to fully close the valve.

[roy mawbey]

Phil, that's a nice repair! Thank you and Jack also for your comments on the steering box. Those all made sense to me.Providing? the leak stays minimal I will probably top up with 90. But..interesting to note Jack has suctioned the oil out moving the steering wheel to gain access. I have read a lot of forums where they have mixed oil and grease etc, but once that is done there is no guarantee it will work and then it would mean a strip down. Jack is correct the box un-opened since 1959 has lasted well, no complaints. I do know also its possible to buy 190W /250W synthetic gear oil might even try that in the future.

Cheers guys!

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Need to order a shift rod guide ring. This Stoddard one looks typical:



but a lot different than what is on there:



Got the "good" ZF box partially disassembled and poured a whole cup of green oil out. The pitman shaft measures .997 except at the seal area where a narrow band measures .990". The Stoddard seal is 25mm(.984"). Is this seal wear or by design, as what I have usually seen from seal wear is a very narrow groove, not wide like this one?

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, your existing bushing is for VW, and wil not allow the shifter to have adequate travel. Be sure to install the shifter lock pawl in correct orientation. Fixed one today on backwards. One second to put it on wrong, and one hour to correct!
Worn spot on steering arm looks pretty rough to make a good seal, IF the seal indeed rides there. In problem areas such as this, I sometimes sand down the back side of the seal, making it thinner and pressing it in deeper, allowing it to ride in a undisturbed location on a given shaft. Special care must be taken in this type of repair, particularly when using a seal that is coated on the OD with the seal material over the steel inner sleeve. After the back side material has been removed for "thinning", carefully chamfer the edge, be it coated or raw steel. Also chamfer the leading edge of the bore (a good idea on any seal installation). This will give a little head start to the seal to go in straight. On coated seals, you don't want to tear or "bunch" the coating, so go slowly and straight, looking for irregularities developing on the surface. If so correct and chamfer more. A wire wheel can give good results on coated seals. Use plenty of lube (WD 40 is good), and if all is well, you can often push them in by hand, excepting minor tapping to assure full seating. On steel jackets, a little Hylomar gives good lubricity and sealing properties.

[Phil Planck]

Could not find any rattle can paint to match the Boge brown on the old shocks so took one in to my local paint man and he brewed up a match:



More steering box work. Removed the worm gear from the purchased box and put it on the drill press to clean up the seal surface:



Put all the parts in the parts washer and degreased and inspected. Worm gear bearings look okay so reassembled for feel test:



This gear looks to be in very good shape with a still blackened surface. Contrast this to the one in Foam Cars box:


There is a "dent" on the worm surface, not in the area where it was positioned when I was hammering on my jury rigged puller.

Don't know how to tell if a peg is worn. Here are both, the shiny being from Foam Car's box:


Foam Car's box was full of grease and both seal surface much better than the purchased box. I plan to use Foam Cars output shaft on the purchased box and switch the pegs.
Edited update: upon further review, the seal surface is about 1/8" above that wide groove from several posts ago. You can see a very slight mark there and that is exactly where the more pronounced seal mark is on Foam Car's output shaft, so I can keep everything matched and use the other box. Not sure what to do with Foam Car's box as I suspect it needs some significant work. I think I will reassemble without the seals and let it go to someone who wants to rebuild it.

[roy mawbey]

Nice pics of the grease inside that Box Phil. I can see Jacks importance of filling every void if you go down the grease route.
Never seen so much on a ZF box before anywhere!!


Interesting thread for sure.

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Roy
But wait, there's more. I pulled the worm out and packed the bearings with grease per the manual and did the final install. Put in the new seal. It rotates very nicely with no rough spots. Then installed the output shaft, oiling the bushing prior to install. The cap had remnants of sealer on it, so I put a thin coat of Yamabond on it:



Snugged the cap down and filled with .25 liters of 90w oil. As prior to tear down, I could not feel the center spot so I slightly tightened down the adjusting screw(hard to turn) marking it's original location first. I was then able to feel the center spot and it was 3/16" away from the mark I had scribed that looked lie the line:


I got out my Dremel and made to light grooves in line with the 2 marks on the housing. Put a yellow mark on it to show up better later installed:


You can also see the new seal. The output shaft seal was installed with a piece of pipe that fit over the shaft and inside the seal housing:



After getting the correct center marked, I backed off the adjusting screw to it's original spot, not much of a change in position.

Thanks Jack for that tip on checking the center. This box is done except for paint and checking the seals for leaks. I think I will clean out the grease from the other box and put it back together with new seals to see how it feels while all of this is fresh in my mind.

[roy mawbey]

Thanks Phil, those photo's are just like Justins and are so useful. I have to check my T2 ZF factory instructions as I may be wrong but putting grease around the worm and peg area on assembly I did not notice. Probably missed it or they updated for T6B.?

Either way, this complete exercise has been very interesting to read.

Well done! ( and thanks again to Jack )

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Both boxes painted. 2nd box seems to be fine also. No rough movement and zero play at center. Slight play off center.

Question - what is the finish on the 4 hole aluminum clamp? One clamp is bare aluminum and the other is painted black. I'm guessing bare aluminum, because it is difficult to get paint to stick to aluminum. Here is a pic from the internet: