Cardone steering gearbox replacement opinions ???

No appology needed.  I did not take it that way at all.  After all, I did ask for opinions.  I tend to put whole paragraphs int 3or4 words.  I know what I intended, but others, not so much.Sorry for the drama,

unlovedford wrote: Todd, I found this situation on 3 of my steering columns. Afraid to pull the ones on my drivers.

I am glad you brought this back up, I may have found some conflicting information about these couplers and the spline counts. I found where the replacement couplers have 32 splines(Ford box) and 10 splines(Saginaw box). I can not confirm, either way, if these are correct spline counts for a "factory" coupler. These could just be what the aftermarket has designed. The Saginaw coupler has less splines but has a flat area inside the coupler to aid in "locating" the steering box input shaft(the splines are always opposite the flat area inside the coupler). The Ford box coupler looks to be fully splined, not sure if it also has an internal flat area like the Saginaw coupler has. I have tried to research this but I do not have any concrete evidence for or against my initial findings. I do know that the couplers I have, DO show signs of corrosion and spline deterioration, I just hope I didn't set off any un-needed alarms posting my earlier findings. Todd

BTW, those splines look to be compromised. Looks like something is causing the splines to wear away or wear out . Todd

Edited by aquartlow - 30-March-2014 at 2:56PM

I don't think I've ever pulled one of those apart that DIDN'T have some of the splines mashed down.

Todd, is there a buildup on the use of Jeep internals on your box?

There are some variables on these cars. I swapped a '96-'98 Grand Cherokee Saginaw box into my Squire wagon. Direct fit, output shaft was indexed every 90 degrees so I just repositioned my arm. Input shaft coupling was one I had in my garage, fit perfectly. VAST difference in the feel and would be even better with a plastic pump, as the discharge hole in the plastic pump is larger (more firm feel).

Others have said that the holes in their frames don't match up to that box or the coupling would not work. I plan on doing the exact same swap on my red wagon this month using a GC box and the plastic pump (eliminating that awful manual steering) when I do my other mods. Hopefully it will bolt on as easily as the other did. I will make a thread and show pictures as I go, if that will help. Somewhere on here is a thread where I showed the similarities in the Saginaw and Jeep boxes and the regular Ford box - perhaps someone can find it?

Eliteman76 wrote: Todd, is there a buildup on the use of Jeep internals on your box? I was also digging around and came across a guy off the 460forum, and he was on Supermotors, and mentioning a mod on his from upper arms to get rid of some unwanted issues our suspension design suffers from. What about the hoses? Assuming the Lares uses different hoses?

Andy,
Sorry, I have no write-up or pics of the swapping of parts. I just picked up another JGC steering box to swap the internals to a box I originally removed from my Ranchero to save if the other swap didn't work out. It WILL get the JGC internals, it makes that much of a difference. I will take a bunch of pics, but it will be a while before I get a chance to work on the boxes. When I swapped the internals I kept the original input rotary valve to keep the input shaft spline to steering coupler the same. I changed the rack, the worm gear and the ball bearings, I used a rebuild kit designed for a '79 Ranchero gear box, everything went together correctly with no machine work. The JGC has the same degrees of output shaft rotation so the internal stops from the Ford/Saginaw box works correctly(a Camaro/Firebird/Monte Carlo quick ratio box has less degrees of output shaft rotation which equals a larger turning radius=not good). It was a pretty straight-forward operation, messing with the ball bearing was the worst part. Todd

Edited by aquartlow - 01-May-2014 at 11:45AM

I don't know what year Torino box you have pictured, but it is not like the ones I used. If you search under this section for Cherokee Box, I included pictures of a '74 Torino Saginaw box, '72 Ford box, '96 GC box, and a '98 GC box. The '74 Torino has an extra mounting boss you need not use (4). I pulled these off ZJ Jeeps I was parting out. The one on my brown wagon works great. Front steer or rear steer makes no difference, as the output shaft is indexed every 90 degrees, so you just flip the direction.

I will make detailed pictures of the swap on my red wagon when I do it next month.

Edited by unlovedford - 01-May-2014 at 3:03PM

Didn't mean to confuse anyone on the gear box alternatives. It is just what worked for me. The heavy duty forum replacement box for a ZJ is a Dodge Durango box. However, it is physically larger - probably prohibitively so. XJ and ZJ Jeeps have plenty of room in that area, so not a big deal.