1977 Ford F250 sector shaft spray welding
 

On Jan 31, 10:40*pm, oldjag wrote:
My 1977 Ford F250 power steering box is a bit loose on the bottom
sector shaft journal. This was a $350.00 "rebuilt box" but it looks
like the only thing rebuilt about it was a resealing job. *I opened it
up and the main issue seems to be the lower end of the sector shaft,
(nominal 1.375 dia), is worn about 0.003" and the housing bore is
ovaled out about 0.015". The sector shaft on this box has no bottom
bushing or needle bearing. I'm thinking about boring the housing for a
Torrington needle bearing. The sector shafts are no longer available,
so it will need to be repaired.

*By strange coincidence I found a Eutectic Rototec spray welder kit
new in the box on Craigs list today. *It came with with a supply of
unopened *spray powders. It's more or less a oxygen/acetylene torch
with a feed hopper and a tool post mount setup for for spray welding.
According to the manual, the Rototec process is a "cold" process that
does not heat the shaft over 500 F, I'm thinking about using it to
build up the worn journal area on the shaft. *One of the powder
formulations is recommended for build up of bearing races, so it
sounds possible. *The other alternative is bushing the housing with a
bronze bushing. *This would have lower unit loading than a needle
bearing on the shaft overlay.
Comments?

Got a U-Pull-It around? Could be a LOT cheaper than tooling up for a
one-off.

Stan