Steering box (and pitman arm) stuff

[daryl]

Hello All,

TLDR: replaced tires, pitman arm, steering box, got alignment. All is well.

I recently had the fun experience of replacing tires. That led to an alignment. That led to replacing the pitman arm (they only last 60 years I guess). And that led to replacing the steering box. 

I thought it might be helpful to know what’s available should this be your lot in the near future. 

Pitman arms are no longer available from Moog. 😢

Everything else in that part of my car is Moog (except the tubular arms) so this was disappointing to find out. Kind of leads to the realization that we are going to have a more challenging time going forward. Pitman arms are available for about $100. This place and a few others have them https://www.rareparts.com/

(Funny aside. The alignment guy was trying to communicate to me from behind his computer that the pitman arm was available from rareparts. I thought he was saying it was a rare part. So I kept agreeing with him that it was indeed a rare part. It was only when I got home and looked myself that I realized he was saying rareparts, the company.)

I ended up finding an nos made in Canada Macquay-Norris pitman arm on eBay so I can’t speak to quality of the brand new rareparts products. I have developed a distrust of modern manufacturing choices so I’ll gamble on old vs not Moog new. YMMV 

When I was scoping out what the problem was with the old pitman, I could see the sector shaft was not just spinning round but was ovaling round. This old box is a used 16:1 mopar box that I got 20 years ago with about 3 adjustment threads showing. It leaked from day one. It cost me $250 at the time. My intention was to try it out and rebuild it if I liked 16:1 manual steering. I liked it but it worked well enough that I just never felt pulling it out and being carless was worth the effort if it still worked. The leak got more obvious over time. The adjustment threads became zero. This seemed like a good time to deal with it. 

Important points: I’ve never rebuilt a steering box; New ones have become available. Your choices, in 16:1, 20:1, or granny flavor, range from about $400 to almost $1000. The $400 version is from PST, which is at Kanter now. I think flaming river was the $1k box and firmfeel was in between. 

I got the PST box. They have a first time buyer code so it was about $400 with tax and free shipping. 

The box comes prefilled with some kind of grease. I checked both the preload and the mesh. Preload was correct and mesh I readjusted because to check the other you have to loosen the mesh. 

In other words, it arrived in working order. Between that and the pitman arm and the tires and the alignment, it’s taken some getting used to. It all works tightly as it should and clearly it wasn’t all that before the repairs. Amazing what we get used to if things slowly deteriorate. Also nice to not have to allocate a pan to the constant drip location of the steering box. It’s amazingly clean in that area now. 

HTH, Daryl

Sent from my iPhone

[Ben F.]

Thanks for sharing! 

I'm actually tackling this project myself soon. I ordered a rebuilt box from FirmFeel I didn't order any other parts though. Visual inspection they look okay and I'm not upset with my steering besides the leaking PSbox. Though I do know firmfeel has all the parts like the pitman arm in case I need them. 

I've never separated the steering column from the box before, how difficult was that? 

--Ben

[daryl]

If the ps coupler is the same as manual, I’d consider rebuilding the coupler if you haven’t already. 

Separating the column from the box isn’t complicated. The manual walks it through but basically remove the collar from the coupler and loosen the column retaining bolts enough to allow it to slide up.

An assistant is helpful but not required. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 23, 2026, at 8:54 AM, Ben F. <email...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for sharing! 

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[Tom Chaapel]

I usually use Summit racing, Classic Industries,  Yearone, AMS OBSOLETE. 

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[Ben F.]

Nope never took any of that stuff apart ever... Guaranteed all original. 

Definitely will need to study this before I start taking it apart :)