Steering box shock!

Well I am on to reinstalling the steering box..... better look inside..... oh what a mess.  The oil seems to have been emulsified and turned to blobs of grease like substances.  Might be its age or due to flooding last December.  Dismantling and washing it all out was priority.  It is actually in quite good condition with good bearings and little wear.  I did get a bit of a surprise though as amongst the muddy mess were some apparently split ball bearings!  When they were clean I realised they were supposed to be like that to make the peg run smoothly in the worm.  That is the problem with working without a manual and modern Haynes style drawings.  Dry fitting them back showed that they were a good fit nothing to worry about.  The rebuild went well and with a coat of gloss black it is now on the car again.  JCW Posted by FLYJCW 29/09/2016 17:18:39

Thanks John,  Enjoying the journey from the other side of the world.  Richard Melbourne Posted by RichardWallach 29/09/2016 20:20:31

Thanks Richard....... I am enjoying the journey too!   There are amazing things around every corner, Alvis really were engineers who designed and made things, or asked others of a similar mind to make things. Solutions were man and pencil made, ideas from inventive engineering brains were tried and developed. I guess they thought that they were ahead of the game for their time and indeed modern cars except for electronics are little different in many aspects. Better Metalurgy and tolerances coupled with computer modelling have produced todays developments the basics though are similar to 1932. There is also a logicality about everything Alvis, you can see and touch the designers thinking that's hard to explain to casual onlookers who ask why are you doing this restoration!  Regards John   PS ....just a thought if you can catch a TV series"Harley and the Davidsons" (It is a Discovery Channel 3 part series)......it really is worth a look. It chronicles the Harley Davidson Partnership from a back street shed to National prominence. It is an unusual mix of TV "soap opera" historical fact and technological development. The detail sketches that show Bill Harley develop his ideas and make them, show what an exiting time this was for engineering world wide!  JCW Posted by FLYJCW 30/09/2016 08:51:55

Thanks John, will look out for it.  Regards,  Richard Posted by RichardWallach 01/10/2016 19:33:27

Did you put a new shaft in it? I am told that you should do as the old ones tend to crack and then--------------TRAGEDY! As we are going to use the car in competition we have just replaced ours, beautifully made out of EN24t, complete with new bushes, but £400! I am told that all the scrutineers are aware of the problem and know how to check wether they are looking at an old one or a new one. (There's a little pip on the new ones at the end of the splines for the drop arm, the old ones have a dimple.) Posted by Delagiste 30/12/2017 14:52:43