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-   -   Invader 4x4 : Hard steering and steering box leaking (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/4x4-technical/129776-invader-4x4-hard-steering-steering-box-leaking-2.html)

Still no Pics , they would provide clues as D B Sir has suggested .

some how I suspect the king pin bearings & its angle .


Sudarshan

Sir,

As this is a BOLERO Invader 4wd this should have OKBJ , may not be a king pin.

regards,
Rajith

OK , in other words, what thing does the job of the king pin ? I suspect it to be faulty .

what I meant was not exactly the king pin rod / bar but the bearing / bushing part doing the same job . :)

Sudarshan

P. S. found the correct word for that part , Upper & lower ball Joint -- sorry bit bad copy of that image I have .

just a thought : what will happen if the moving axle joints inside it malfunction ? will the steering be hard ?

It has been very hard to get camera, weather, internet, vehicle and me all in the right juxtaposition to do a show and tell. Please be patient, I appreciate your help, all.

It is OKBJ, NGCS.....and @#%&!!!

It has ball joints but it looks like a kingpin application ala the drawing posted previously.


I will pursue this, for sure. This is the way they do it around here but the one guy who is a real expert at it is mad at his shop owner boss and has run off to the mountains to herd sheep and fight brown bears. He won't be back for 8 months, if ever.

Armed with the new knowledge gained here I will try to find somebody around this locale to tackle it starting today. Stay tuned to this channel for further developments.

Skudarshan, good question about the moving axle. Will pursue it.

Dan, how about removing the steering box link rod, lifting the wheels and turning the wheels by hand first, to try and identify whether the problem is in the king pin set up or the box?

Well, I got lucky today and found the right shade tree mechanic. Basically I asked him to follow the two procedures quoted here. Mr. Shade Tree also removed my steering column, replaced a somewhat sticking bushing in the steering column tube along with setting the steering box screw ala Ringoism above in post #14.

The steering is now greatly improved though not perfect. Acceptable in other words. New ball joints are in my near future I think. The steering box is seeping slowly, not leaking fast at all, so I am going to keep my eye on it.

Says the mechanic, "A lot of them do that, not to worry."

Total cost for 3.5 hours of hard work. 200 rupees. Thanks all. The Team BHP gurus have solved another one....maybe,..we will see if it stays fixed in the next few days.

A sad note, the Mahindra mechanics had their collective heads up their exhaust pipes on this one. They were of no help at all.

While doing the above, if the KPI had been measured / corrected, then the steering box leakage issue should stop.

The steering box if tuned properly has no reason to leak!

What Ringo has mentioned is the basic method and very informative clap:

Sir one request , have you checked if the front diff is working properly ? jack up & check both wheels ( even in turned position ) if they are rotating freely - blocking one at a time .

Btw ; thanks for the new name :D

Sudarshan

This post is a follow up. Here it is 2 months later and the fix above has held up. I had seen mechanics doing this procedure a few times but I did not know what exactly they were doing, and I did not mentally relate it to my hard steering problem. I thought it was a bushing/alignment thing they were doing.

Now I have a question. I have been thinking of buying a new Thar CRDe. It has power steering. Am I going to have the same sorts of trouble finding qualified people to adjust the steering on it? Has Mahindra made power steering adjustment on the Thar CRDe into another cult puja with its own indecypherable holey language and out-sourced high priests, bearers of the sacred knowledge? Or can Mahindra actually service this thing itself?

The Thar CRDE has R&P power steering hence you will not face the kind of wear and tear normally associated with the W&R steering. When it wears out, replacing it is probably the best solution!

Just confirming my earlier assessment that "any reasonably perceptive technician / lathe operator" should be able to handle 'box rebuilding:

I got ours completed yesterday, with my own hands and presumably some divine intervention (I'd truly prayed); If initial impressions are any indication, it seems to have been a success.

Our Marshal as delivered had very nice light steering with only moderate play, but I'd noticed even before buying it that the lower (pinion) shaft had quite a lot of axial (side-to-side) movement under load (ideally there should be none), and also that the seal had obviously been leaking for some time. Since the basic "feel" at the wheel was good, I just adjusted the box; Knowing that I'd probably have to fabricate a bushing for the lower shaft, larger repairs were put on hold till I could afford to be without the car for a few days, or else find a good second-hand box, which would be a half-hour job to change, at most (if I'd have been smart, I'd have checked the oil level, too - because by the time I opened it two days ago, I found it to be totally dry, with more water than oil and plenty of rust as a result!).

We drove to Shimla (and beyond) in December, much of that time spent on small, tightly winding roads at as high as speed as was controllable, with constant high-energy inputs at the steering wheel (tiring); Somewhere along the way, steering effort noticeably increased (even more tiring). A few months henceforth, my arms were getting notably stronger - and some harder binding was making the car downright dangerous to drive - specially for my wife, I thought. Being too busy, the most I'd done since the Shimla drive was to check on the prices of second-hand gears (mine is a front-mounted Rane), hoping maybe I'd find one out of a low-mileage wreck (campers / pickups seem to use an identical unit, and here in the hills you do see accident vehicles pretty often). Price quoted (for boxes of unknown history): Rs3,500 - excessive in my book.

So the past couple days I finally got down to doing the job myself. Technical issues on my end preclude posting photos right now, but if anyone's interested in attempting this work themselves, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

As stated earlier, manual steering gears are extremely simple units - besides the housing, one pinion shaft, one worm/roller (input) shaft, two bearings, two bushings, two seals, and two covers (the forward one with shims to adjust worm-shaft end play). Bearings for the worm/roller shaft were available here in Manali, proving that local mechanics here do rebuild them (a second one whom I met said he's done "many" - and he had extra shims on hand to prove it). Bushings are available from Delhi, but probably since pinion shafts can be worn, they are normally custom-made to size on a local level.

Disassembly is straightforward, but two points here: First, I would emphasize that a proper gear puller (a heavy one, with FINE threads) should be used to remove the Pitman arm, in lieu of the typical local method of beating it off with a hammer & bar (which puts immense load on the worm shaft; if you're lucky it might bend, and you'll just have tight spots of resistance as you turn the wheel - if unlucky, it could possibly even break as the roller gear is driven/wedged down hard against it). Rane has helpfully provided two nice little tabs on either sides of the Pitman arm for a two-armed puller (available in all metro industrial markets) to catch on. USE THEM.

Secondly, it takes a little creativity to remove the input side outer bearing race - I drilled two holes through the box housing so I could drive it out from behind with a drift punch, then sealed those up later with RTV. Outer race in the opposite end (front cover) was more accessible, but staked in - so I had to use a grinder to remove some material from the cover's ID before I could extract it.

Complicating my rebuild considerably, one of the "ears" on the top end of the pinion shaft had snapped off - that's what was causing the binding / hard steering, as the loading / lower bushing play allowed the remaining top-end ear to move all over inside the top bushing and gouge it to death. A new pinion shaft would've cost Rs1,200, but more importantly, it wouldn't have reached Manali for three days, an unacceptable time-frame in my case. Moreover, I figured that if the design had allowed it to snap off once, it could happen eventually with a new shaft, too - so I sort of re-engineered the piece, reattaching the broken ear with good fillet welds and deep penetration, but also adding a "bridge" over to the other ear to strengthen both, before putting everything in the lathe and machining it down to the correct diameter. Hopefully this will prove durable.

The other complication in my case is that though there are two lathe machines in Manali (actually three, including one owned by a private industry), there are no lathe operators available. Hence, very limited tooling for the machines and no bushing-making materials (namely, brass) to be found. I didn't feel like riding down south anywhere from 15 to 100km to find the ideal material, so got thinking of other options: for one, cast iron. Normally you don't want similar metals as mating parts - but I figured that since the shaft was hard and the bush would softer, besides having some self-lubricating properties inherent in cast iron, and being that there was a full-time oil supply, it might be okay. Hardened steel poppet valves do run in cast-iron guides. And cylinder walls / piston rings are commonly both of cast-iron. So it didn't seem totally unprecedented, though neither of those examples represents rotating motion. Anyway, steering shaft rotation is slow.

I found, luckily, that a 3/4" GI straight pipe joint provides almost the perfect size as a starting point for machining to the required final size (1.250" ID, 1.375" OD & length). So I mounted it up in the lathe using a 4" long 3/4" GI nipple to hold it in the chuck, and got to work, checking measurements regularly with a digital caliper. The old lower bush actually seemed good enough without too much play against my redesigned upper pinion surface, and being a bit longer, it would also provide more support, so I re-installed it in the top plate.

Well, to keep a long story from getting any longer, I'll just say that it all worked out and I was able to get the new bushing made/installed and the box reassembled just before dark last evening. Getting behind the wheel, steering was nice and light again, but it actually felt a little weird to drive with no play anywhere in the steering now - very responsive. I have no doubt I'll get used to it :).

I'll keep everyone updated on this, as I myself have some doubts about the iron bushing and the upper shaft repair... but for now it seems to be working very well. I know that much of this will be hard to grasp without photos - so again, please inform if seriously interested - my data cable is not working for some reason, but I can get it done somehow.

BTW: Total cost: NRB bearing #JB1003 - two sets at MRP Rs 230/ea;
Seal kit (one input, double lower) - Rs 90 complete;
Bit of RTV silicone (adjuster plate packing not available)
Lathe/grinder/welder use - Rs 150;
1+ day of my labor - free
= Rs 700 (not bad!)

I also didn't have to pay anything for this particular segment of my personal hands-on education.

Regards,
Erik

(P.S. - I watched my Injection Pump being disassembled / reassembled earlier in the week (inspection and new seals installed), and assuming one has a nice clean work area, it doesn't seem beyond the scope of what an advanced DIY'er / hobbyist should be capable of. Practically no specialty tools required).

First photo is the "exploded" view of the very dirty/rusty Rane 'box components as disassembled; Second shows the pinion shaft with broken upper ear at left; Third/Fourth, the re-installed unit.

Forgive the many omissions which may have proved useful, and thanks for looking.

-Erik