Ross box Question

Does anybody know if there is an adjustment on the old Ross steering box's?? To tighten it up just a bit..

 

What he said. 8)

 

it won't help............

JB

 

the adjustment screw and nut are there for a reason
just don't adjust with the wheels in the straight ahead position
and a little goes a long way
check full turn lock to lock when finished

 

Best way to adjust it is to jack the front tires off the ground so you can do easy lock to lock turns as you adjust it. That way you can feel the adjustment take up the play better. No more than a 1/4 turn at a time then check for it getting tight on turning to full one way then the other. The gear tends to wear more in the middle and if you take the play out to much it can damage the gears when you do a full turn since it will not be worn there and get real tight on a full lock turn one way or the other. Mark

 

JB said: "it won't help............"

I actually had pretty good success adjusting the Ross box on my CJ3A. Jacking up the front and tightening the center screw, I went a little too far at first and had kind of a "bump" near the center. I backed off maybe 3/16 of a turn and locked it down. This took up about 1/3 of the slop in the steering. 2 new tie rod ends brought it in even further, and servicing/adjusting the left wheel bearing took care of the rest.

 

Also check the ball adjustments at the end of the drag links to make sure they are still tight..


BUBBA

 

You might want to move the wheel back and forth while inspecting the steering system. Many times the bushings on the sector shaft are worn causing the shaft to move up and down instead of rotating. This also applies to the bellcrank piviot bearings. No amount of adjusting at the box will fix this.

 

I do know what the adjustment screw on the ross box is for, I was just making a wise crack thinking how most of the 40 year old ross box systems are worn out from the steering wheel to the knuckles. That adjustment is such a small "help" by itself that it is nearly insignificant without a complete inspection and determination of all the worn tie rod ends, bell crank bushungs and drag link ends.

Ross boxes that have seen a fair amount of flat towing have severally worn screws and sector shafts.

JB

 

Not trying to hijack the thread into another direction, but the comment about flat-towing struck a chord. I have a tow-bar on the front of my CJ3A, and keep it there pretty much permanently. I have both a heavy car-hauler and a lightweight trailer I built specifically to haul the buggies or Jeeps. For reasons of convenience, I occasionally do flat-tow for very short distances. The one time I dragged the Jeep 400 miles to Arizona on an impromptu prospecting trip, my light trailer needed work, so I decided to flat-tow. What a royal pain in the butt that was! I checked the front tires after about 50 miles and found them to be heating up. Adjusted tow-in twice, until the tires ran cooler. With front tow-in adjusted so the ND tires wouldn’t scrub the tread off, the Jeep didn’t track quite as well as usual, and tended to want to steer in their own direction after any tight turn. Backing was damn near impossible without unhitching or having someone to “help” with the steering wheel. With all that stress on the box I can understand why the oldtimers advise against flat-towing. I won’t make another long trip flat-towing, but will run with the trailer.