[T3] Steering box play

[Jim Adney]

On 27 Mar 2017 at 10:41, Sean Bartnik wrote:

> Based on Tim Shreve's extensive steering box thread on the Samba, the
> TRW boxes do still use that shim. They've cut cost in some other areas
> it seems such as machining QC on the housings, cheap bearings, etc.
> They also have eliminated the brass bushing in the top cover, leaving
> the roller shaft to bear directly on the aluminum of the top cover. 

I had to go downstairs and verify that the cover was Alum, and it is. But 
where is the brass bushing. I'd also forgotten that the roller shaft went up 
into the cover, so that, while the face of the adjusting screw takes all the 
thrust, there's a bearing there to take the side load. 

Alum really isn't a bad bearing material, as long as it gets some lubrication. 
Lubrication for the thrust is probably less of a problem, because those parts 
are at the bottom of a "well," but the side load bearing is worse off, because 
there's not much to keep lubrication there.

I don't spend much time on the samba. It's a great web site, but there are 
only so many hours in the day. Do you have a link to Tim's thread, or just his 
name on that site. I'd like to see what he's doing.

> Tim is having new shim sets manufactured in the original VW sizes for
> his rebuild kits both for the roller shaft shims and the worm shaft
> shims. 

I bought a few of the VW shims a few years ago, when I was going thru the 
only steering gearbox I ever messed with, which was mostly out of curiosity.. 
Are people finding them to be a big problem? I've never had any real trouble 
with them.

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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