I found some serious help on another truck here so here goes. I have fought with some steering play in this truck for years. Annoying but works. I did adjust the rack mesh screw a bit and didn't help much so I kicked the can down the road. I do know most of my play is in that box and not elsewhere. FF to now and I have a serious leak at what appears to be the input shaft seal. Only because these things are expensive, most are remans, AND it seems even Delco remans are hit and miss, I took the deep dive to understand the design and these whole thing is easily within my wheelhouse to work on. However, I cannot find a damn thing about my box. When you get online, all you see is old Saginaw boxes. I know mine is AC Delco, I believe PN is 19330624. I really want to know who actually makes the box, AND how in the world people get exploded views or even manuals on these things???? I see people online with them and I have no clue because GM certainly has no rebuild spec for these. Toss it and get another..... What I have realized is the mechanics of this thing is actually an ballscrew with external return ballnut, in which the ball nut is the rack. But because I know too much about ballscrews, I know that unless the ballnut is a split nut design, there is no adjustment for them aside from reballing, many times to calculated ball sizes.....which I know how to do. But I have also seen on all these saginaw boxes where they have an adjustment nut on the input shaft for thrust preload. However, my box does not have that so I suspect it is set with shims inside. I figure I will either find my lost motion there, or in the ballnut. But a guy really like to know before blindly opening. It's already broke so not like it can get worse. The reason I want to work on it is I have determined that I don't have sector shaft play, and I think some seals and adjusting can get it going. I simply don't trust remans. Just saw a video where a mechanic found seals in backwards and parts missing on a reman. I don't need that drama! If you guys look up that PN, you will see that the input snout appears to have all the hydro valving inside it. I can see that the seal is installed from the inside so no question it has to come apart. I'd like to take the sector shaft off and inspect. I sort of need to see that ballnut so I can determine the source of the lost motion. Shid, figured I would just drop this like as it looks just like this. Should be the same box but notice they blurred the stamp? Hmm..... Gear Box - Detroit Axle www.detroitaxle.com
3 minutes in, on this video.
You the man! Not my identical box but close enough to see nothing will explode when cap is removed. Have to take some of these videos with a stiff shot....omg.... Anyway, it appears I will end up going deeper as no thrust adjustment looks possible under the cap. But I do like the more modern design inside, which I expected. Possibly much easier to work on.
Red Head.
Replaced a oem ford with a redhead in my 350 due to leaks and was not impressed, it didn't leak but was sloppier than the original. From what everybody said about them I was expecting better steering not slightly worse
Interesting ---but remember no shop is perfect. There is always going to be the dissatisfied customer.
Had the same results with a napa box as well, my 450 had the tightest steering with no slop at all then the box started leaking, after replacement the box had noticeable slop. Good parts are hard to come by now
What year 3500hd? Might be worth a trip to a junkyard to see if they have any and what condition they're in
Then it's new OEM.