KaiserM109
New member
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- SE Aurora, CO
If you have been reading through a TM and just as you get to the part you are interested in, the TM tells you to refer the problem to “DS”, you have experienced the frustration I dealt with this weekend.
First, let me give you a bit of history on my truck, a 1984 M923A1. I did my time in the Army and having a truck checked out to me, a “three quarter ton” (an m37), I became familiar with how trucks got maintained. All drivers are required to be proficient in simple things like proper operation and maintaining fluids and tires. In the “normal” situation, motor pool mechanics would take over when the goin' gets tough, usually at the point where a screwdriver or end wrench was involved.
However, in a deployment situation, the driver often assumes responsibilities never given to a stateside driver, like “fix the air horn” or “install that hard cab”. I pick those two items as an example because those have been royally screwed up on my truck. By “screwed up” I mean things aren’t aligned, the wrong bolts and screws were used and bolts are missing or have been snapped off and not fixed. This leads me to believe that my truck was deployed to some place, like my first deployment, where the motor pool mechanics were worried about far more important matters like fixing shot-up equipment or poor logistics leading to no replacement parts. The Army, in its infinite wisdom does not increase the motor pool staff in situations where they are likely to be very busy, rather they decrease it by not filling all slots. But that’s a touchy subject I don’t want to go into without a pitcher of beer in front of me.
All that being said, and thanks for letting me vent, I set out to get my air horns working. The first thing to do was to replace the obviously missing components, which I did by buying a box of small parts from an SS member. Then I began trouble shooting and found that I had 2 problems, the horn solenoid had no continuity and something in the steering column was shorted to ground. It is rare for two things to break at the same time and I am guessing the short happened first which overheated the solenoid. Back to my SS buddy for more parts.
After failing to find a TM that described the internals of the steering column, I concluded that I was missing some sort of slip ring because the brush was riding on the steering shaft. I proceeded to take it apart, as apparently someone before me had done without success. One clue was the bottom mounting bolts for the housing were loose. When I had the column off the truck, I tapped on the center shaft and it slid out much too easily followed by a shower of parts, including 21 tiny balls from the lower bearing. Fortunately the top bearing stayed together where there is another 21 balls.
The steering column is built like the next-generation bicycle steering column. It has a ball bearing at each end that DOES NOT have a carrier like bicycles do, and also has a grease seal and the electrical components for the horn. The missing slip ring was at the bottom of the shaft and I can’t for the life of me see what is supposed to hold it in place, about 10 inches from the end.
The bearings are like those on bicycles and must be lubed directly by disassembling them. If you do not have an electrical problem and the wheel spins easily when disconnected from the lower joint, I would recommend that you leave it alone. For those of you considering or needing to dive into your steering column, there are some ‘does’ and ‘don’ts’ you need to know about. If you do have the steering shaft out, which should not have been the first thing you removed like I did, DON’T knock the bearing housings out by pounding on them from the inside with a long bar. The part you will be striking is a hardened bearing race. It is brittle and will crack easily. You have to use a technique that is probably not in even DS’s manuals because all service manuals were written when the equipment was new and they don’t usually account for the ravages of time and rust.
The first thing to do, after removing the whole column from the truck and removing the steering wheel, is remove the ring that holds the seal at the bottom end in place. Don’t try to remove the seal; it will come off with the bearing housing. The bearing housings, one at each end, are about 1 ½ inches long and press fit into the ends of the outside tube. If you clean the ends and scrape the paint, you will see the separation. If you are lucky, tapping on the edge of the bearing housing with a chisel or punch will bring it out.
There is one thing you need to be aware of when maintaining government designed equipment, the manuals will often give you instructions that will destroy a part and then tell you to replace it, something you probably do not want to do on your truck. To get a better purchase on the end of the bearing housing without damaging it, take a hacksaw or angle grinder and cut a thin, shallow slot in the end of the outer tube, just deep enough to expose a little bit of the bearing housing and give you a spot to tap on it. There is plenty of contact area for the press fit and losing that little bit won’t matter. You might have to do it on both sides.
My predecessor had apparently removed the center shaft first because the thin, rather weak clips that hold the bearing housing together were loose on the column, and the ball bearings were out of place, i.e. all over the inside of the main tube. Doing it correctly by removing the bearing housings first, they will come out with a weak clip holding the halves of the bearing housing together. Caution, when you open up the housing, there are 21 tiny ball bearings that will fall out. Now, there may be some variation from truck to truck, so be ready for a surprise.
With both bearing housings out, the shaft should come out with no whanging and banging. After washing all the parts, I used white lithium grease but I don’t think the choice is important. Unless the driver is in a very exciting situation, I don’t think they will get hot and I like white lithium for small parts that aren’t subjected to a lot of heat or pressure.
First, let me give you a bit of history on my truck, a 1984 M923A1. I did my time in the Army and having a truck checked out to me, a “three quarter ton” (an m37), I became familiar with how trucks got maintained. All drivers are required to be proficient in simple things like proper operation and maintaining fluids and tires. In the “normal” situation, motor pool mechanics would take over when the goin' gets tough, usually at the point where a screwdriver or end wrench was involved.
However, in a deployment situation, the driver often assumes responsibilities never given to a stateside driver, like “fix the air horn” or “install that hard cab”. I pick those two items as an example because those have been royally screwed up on my truck. By “screwed up” I mean things aren’t aligned, the wrong bolts and screws were used and bolts are missing or have been snapped off and not fixed. This leads me to believe that my truck was deployed to some place, like my first deployment, where the motor pool mechanics were worried about far more important matters like fixing shot-up equipment or poor logistics leading to no replacement parts. The Army, in its infinite wisdom does not increase the motor pool staff in situations where they are likely to be very busy, rather they decrease it by not filling all slots. But that’s a touchy subject I don’t want to go into without a pitcher of beer in front of me.
All that being said, and thanks for letting me vent, I set out to get my air horns working. The first thing to do was to replace the obviously missing components, which I did by buying a box of small parts from an SS member. Then I began trouble shooting and found that I had 2 problems, the horn solenoid had no continuity and something in the steering column was shorted to ground. It is rare for two things to break at the same time and I am guessing the short happened first which overheated the solenoid. Back to my SS buddy for more parts.
After failing to find a TM that described the internals of the steering column, I concluded that I was missing some sort of slip ring because the brush was riding on the steering shaft. I proceeded to take it apart, as apparently someone before me had done without success. One clue was the bottom mounting bolts for the housing were loose. When I had the column off the truck, I tapped on the center shaft and it slid out much too easily followed by a shower of parts, including 21 tiny balls from the lower bearing. Fortunately the top bearing stayed together where there is another 21 balls.
The steering column is built like the next-generation bicycle steering column. It has a ball bearing at each end that DOES NOT have a carrier like bicycles do, and also has a grease seal and the electrical components for the horn. The missing slip ring was at the bottom of the shaft and I can’t for the life of me see what is supposed to hold it in place, about 10 inches from the end.
The bearings are like those on bicycles and must be lubed directly by disassembling them. If you do not have an electrical problem and the wheel spins easily when disconnected from the lower joint, I would recommend that you leave it alone. For those of you considering or needing to dive into your steering column, there are some ‘does’ and ‘don’ts’ you need to know about. If you do have the steering shaft out, which should not have been the first thing you removed like I did, DON’T knock the bearing housings out by pounding on them from the inside with a long bar. The part you will be striking is a hardened bearing race. It is brittle and will crack easily. You have to use a technique that is probably not in even DS’s manuals because all service manuals were written when the equipment was new and they don’t usually account for the ravages of time and rust.
The first thing to do, after removing the whole column from the truck and removing the steering wheel, is remove the ring that holds the seal at the bottom end in place. Don’t try to remove the seal; it will come off with the bearing housing. The bearing housings, one at each end, are about 1 ½ inches long and press fit into the ends of the outside tube. If you clean the ends and scrape the paint, you will see the separation. If you are lucky, tapping on the edge of the bearing housing with a chisel or punch will bring it out.
There is one thing you need to be aware of when maintaining government designed equipment, the manuals will often give you instructions that will destroy a part and then tell you to replace it, something you probably do not want to do on your truck. To get a better purchase on the end of the bearing housing without damaging it, take a hacksaw or angle grinder and cut a thin, shallow slot in the end of the outer tube, just deep enough to expose a little bit of the bearing housing and give you a spot to tap on it. There is plenty of contact area for the press fit and losing that little bit won’t matter. You might have to do it on both sides.
My predecessor had apparently removed the center shaft first because the thin, rather weak clips that hold the bearing housing together were loose on the column, and the ball bearings were out of place, i.e. all over the inside of the main tube. Doing it correctly by removing the bearing housings first, they will come out with a weak clip holding the halves of the bearing housing together. Caution, when you open up the housing, there are 21 tiny ball bearings that will fall out. Now, there may be some variation from truck to truck, so be ready for a surprise.
With both bearing housings out, the shaft should come out with no whanging and banging. After washing all the parts, I used white lithium grease but I don’t think the choice is important. Unless the driver is in a very exciting situation, I don’t think they will get hot and I like white lithium for small parts that aren’t subjected to a lot of heat or pressure.