Overhauling the steering

Alfa Romeo equipped the cars with two different types of steering:

• Recirculating ball type. This steering was manufactured by Burman. You can identify this type easily: It comes only with a plastic plug to refill oil if necessary. It cannot be readjusted.

• Worm and roller type, manufactured by ZF. It can be identified by the little manufacturer plate riveted on the housing and by an additional screw to adjust the steering. Attention: Don't touch the setting without the proper special tools and the manufacturers manual, otherwise you will destroy this type of steering!

Generally both types of steering are fairly durable - if you feel wear or play in your steering the reason for it can be found in nearly all cases in worn out balljoints or in corroded chassis walls (where the steering box is bolted to the chassis).

Replacement steering boxes are still available but prices are high. The only steering defects I know of are:

• Defect worm and roller type ZF steering due to unprofessional adjustment of the steering. As mentioned above there is a little adjustment screw. Ignorants are tightening this screw when they realize play in the steering. Initially they have success with this measurement, but after a couple of hundred kilometers the play is back again, very often worse than it was before. Inside the housing the worm and roller were pressed with too high pressure against each other when the adjustment screw was tightened with the result that worm and roller are destroyed. The complete steering is defective and can only be thrown away.

• A leaking O-ring on the bottom of the housing. This can happen with both types of steering. This defect can relatively easy be rectified by a good machine shop.

Have a look on the pictures and see what I have done in order to overhaul my recirculating ball steering.

Disassembling: Disassembly starts after cleaning the steering box and marking the position of the parts towards each other. Very important are the positions of the shims. All gaskets need to be replaced. Since they are of paper type you can easily make new gaskets yourself. Pay utmost attention not to loose a ball when you disassemble the box. In order to make things more complicated there are also two ball bearings with open cages - so don't mix the balls, because they have different diameter. There are 54 (fifty-four) recirculating balls mounted in the box.
Machining the box and shaft: At the bottom of the steering box is a simple O-ring mounted. This ring tends to age and oil can find its way out of the box. Very often you will see marks on the shaft that leads through the O-ring. I gave the box and shaft to a machine shop. They selected a suitable packing seal and machined the shaft so that the marks disappeared. The shaft has now a slightly smaller diameter. In the box the hole to accept the new seal is now slightly bigger in diameter.
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