I’m getting ready to build a steering column for my 32. The question that I have is do you put Grease or Oil in the gearbox? The gearbox housing has a grease fitting on it. The repair book calls for Heavy Oil or SAE # 160 Oil. So what is Heavy Oil? How do you put Oil in the gearbox with a grease fitting? A friend is going to use 600 weight oil in his, is this right?

I packed mine full of wheel bearing grease since the sector pinion shaft does not have a seal to hold back oil. Also, be careful using a grease gun to fill it up. I suspect someone may have tried to pump my sector full of grease with a grease gun and cracked the housing.

Brucie! Actually 600W and the modern 160W is pretty much the same thing. The owner's manual calls for heavy oil, everywhere, including the tie rod ends and etc. The problem with that is the oil runs out. The gear box does not have a seal, and all of the oil will run out and you will have a big puddle on your garage floor. Use chassis grease.

Also, there are grease guns that are made for heavy oil (I have one) and they can be used on grease fittings. Some equipment like bulldozers use heavy oil in the oil reservoirs for the track gears and etc. and they are filled with a grease gun containing heavy oil.

I don't think enough internal pressure can be applied with a grease gun to crack the steering box housing.

I bought a quart of the 600 Wt. for $7.50 and checked it with my drilling mud viscosity checker and scales,and it checked exactly the same as some 80- 140 multipurpose gear lube I bought at Tractor Supply for $26 for a 5 gallon bucket. ( the label on the 600 Wt. said it had some special additives)..... So you all can do as you like, but my gearboxes on the '28 got a filling out of the 5 gallon bucket!

I do have an antique greasegun that I filled with the geargrease and use in the alimite fittings where heavy oil is called for.
I used chassis grease in the rear wheel bearings after I replaced the old felt seals with new felt seals.

The easiest thing to do when you have the axles out is to replace the axle bearings with double sealed bearings and then you have no more worries about lubrication, or grease seals to replace either.

Do you lube the chassis ,spring hangers, king pins ,etc. with chassis grease or 600 w ? the owners manual says heavy oil ,but will grease work ? I use the heavy oil and it does make a mess. And I have wondered if grease would work .

Use chassis grease in all of the fittings, not heavy oil, and you will do just fine.

Junkyard Dog, You are 100 percent right. The grease works perfect and no mess. Thanks for the tip. Don

You are welcome!

If you have the felt wicks on the front or rear shakles like the originals then you can use the oil. If you use grease it will lessen the service life. But that will probably be many more years than you are the caretaker of an old Chevy. The other suspension parts are the same.

Thanks guys think I will go to grease,my 31 still has the factory shakles but ,like Chip said I will never wear it out. and that will keep my paint a lot cleaner.

Hey Chip,

I've never heard of felt wicks on the front or rear shackles, could explain some more? Do they show this in the repair manual?

JunkYardDog, you're right about a grease gun not developing enough pressure. I'm used to saying grease gun and meaning an air powered grease gun. Again I cannot prove it, but I suspect given the location of the crack, the thickness of the casting in the crack location and the history of the car, I suspect someone used a power grease gun to pump the sector full. That being said, the pressure built up in the sector could not be released as fast as the grease was being forced in and something had to give. Since I don't really know it is just a word of caution.

Hey Brucie! Yep, originally the shackles had felt oil wicks, but they didn't last long and they are missing on most original worn out shackles that you find today. Also, all of the new old stock shackles that I have seen (in the original box that is) did not have the felt oil wicks included. However, several pieces of Chevrolet literature do mention these felt wicks that were used to "meter" the heavy oil that was in the hollow shackle pins to the shackle arms.

Where are these felt wicks located? Are they stuffed inside the bore in the pin, or are they intended to be the washer-like parts that I thought were seals (located in four places per shackle).

When I bought my '31 1/2 ton, the driver's side shackle was broken from lack of lubrication. I bought a set of replacements from Obsolete Chevy. The original pins had cork washers that went between the pin and the bar (i.e. in four places). I assume these were intended to be seals. I see that Filling Station and others sell these parts in neoprene.

When I installed the '31's shackle, I used Shell Grease 33, which is used by Boeing on aircraft mechanisms. I've tested this stuff on a planetary gear head at temperatures as low as -60 F, it stayed free where the standard moly grease failed (the mechanism stopped moving because of high drag). Pretty incredable I think!

My '37 has a similar problem that I'm now trying to deal with in the best way possible. I have dreams of using the '37 as my summer driver, so I hope to put a lot of use on it.

Forrest: so why is it best to use a heavy oil? This design seems prone to wear, and without a good bearing and seal design it would seem to want a grease. The Chevrolet 1937 Specifications just say's to use "chassis lubricant" every 1000 miles. Probably Crisco oil would work if it were serviced that often!

Thanks for covering the answer JunkYardDog. I have looked for the references that show the felt washers but haven't found where it escaped. If you don't keep and eye on things they sneek off, just like kids.

Well here we go again, I wonder how many points I will have deducted when my car Is judged and I do not have Felt Wicks?

None......because the judges don't have Xray vision!!!!

JunkYardDog, I used the felt seals because they were hanging on the shop wall next to all the cork valvecover and differential gaskets! Also I LIKE to crawl under the car with a grease gun and grease all of the jillion alimite fittings, that way I know that all of the "what-a-ma-call-its" got greased!

The reason that heavy oil is better is because it will flow (though slowly) into areas where it was squeezed or thrown out of. The shackles are subject to very high loads from bumps, chuck holes, etc. and will squeeze grease from between the pins and sockets.

Transmissions also use it because grease would not provide the proper lubrication to the gear teeth, bearings or bushings. Since the oil will flow it will provide better lubrication.

Lenn if you have the shackles with the cork or rubber seals they are not correct for '31 but are for later models. The correct shackles use hardened, tapered pins and corresponding side pieces.

ChevyChip, you are spot on! Thanks for the lube information, I'll have to check the bearing design issues out closer as my intuition seems to be incorrect.

Sorry I've got us off-topic here, but the shackles on my '31 1/2 ton do have tapered pins and the corresponding side pieces. Since I've worked on both the '31 and '37 suspension in the last few weeks, I've gotten confused between the two... I would have sworn that the '31 also had some sort of side seal, but I just checked and you are right!

The '31 has the tapered pins and side plates as you say without seals, and the '37 has a sort of threaded pin that rides in a corresponding threaded bushing. Based on my two trucks, this later design seems to be much better for wear (it provides more bearing area, and probably retains it's lube better)... even though the '37 is worn out, at least it didn't completely eat the shackle up!

Thanks for correcting me. Not that it is important, but I am still left wondering where the felt wick is supposed to be located in the shackles.

I always was told (old days here) not to use grease in gear box applications as gears would just cut a channel in the grease and not pick it up as it doesn't flow back in. do modern greases flow better and so are ok for steering boxes??

As posted earlier, chassis grease will work just fine in your steering box. Actually, you really don't have much of a choice anyway since there are no grease seals in your steering box, any heavy oil will run out over night and you will have a large puddle on your garage floor in the morning.

The felt wicks are in the bottom of the depressions in the side arms.

If your steering shaft and bushings are the correct size then any loss of 600W oil is minimal. It is much the same as the transmission. Neither has seals on the shafts and will leak with lower viscosity oil.

A couple of us had a discussion today and noted that we had found minimal wear in steering gear that was filled with oil but all of those we found with grease were gobbled up. What does that tell you?

Ok, if they are worn then they will not hold oil? Maybe that is only part of the story.

As a test, a steering box was totally rebuilt with a new old stock pitman shaft, and new old stock bushings. Everything was sized correctly. The NOS bushings have a oil groove cut in them that goes to the very outside of the pitman shaft. The steering box was filled with sticky 600W from "Classitique" Products and a lot of the oil ran out overnight. As a further test, the steering box was then completely drained, and then filled with STP to the proper level. Again, a great deal of the STP ran out over night as well. If you don't want to mess with constant oil leaks on your frame, or on your garage floor, use a very smooth chassis grease and for the amount of driving that you will do, the smooth chassis grease will work just fine since most dudes are driving around with very used steering boxes anyway.

So if I'm reading this right, Chip is saying to use oil! Or I should say that we have proof that oil is better then grease.

Oil is definitely better than grease! However, the factory, in their wisdom, did not put oil seals in the steering box to keep the oil inside, but yet, they suggested to use heavy oil in the steering box anyway. With a back and forth motion from the pitman arm, the oil will capillary to the outside of the pitman arm shaft via the oil grooves in the bushings, and leak out. Especially today since most fellows are driving around with used pitman arm shafts and bushings in their steering boxes. A couple of fellows have machined oil seals for their steering boxes and they use oil. It works great....with the oil seal. I believe that Chevrolet finally came out with an oil seal on the steering box around 1934 or 1935. Chev Nut probably can answer that question.

Also, you are forgetting that when a steering box is being used, the grease is being pushed around in the box as the pitman shaft moves. Grease is always being put back on so not tracking through it will be had.....

Just a thought here, could you 'cut' the grease a little with heavy oil? Then it would move and 'fill-back' a little bit better and still not leak out overnight.

'cut' the grease not the cheese.

I like Gator's idea, have thought of trying it, but never did yet. Anybody out there that has tried mixing the two?

I keep adding heavy oil to the steering gear box of my '33, then wiping it back up off the floor, and bitching. Then I add some more. Then I wipe it up some more... I have also wondered if it's just that I put too much in, and after it leaks down to a certain point, maybe there is actually enough that stays in there to do the job?

I guess I do this because I was always scared of the idea mentioned above about "cutting a path" through the grease, and then getting no further lubrication.

It's my driver, I put maybe 100 to 300 miles a month on it.

This is my worst problem with this particular car.

Even when the oil is low, it will continue to leak out some due the capillary action that is created when the steering wheel is turned. Put some smooth grease in your steering box, and not only will you do just fine, but you won't have to wipe up the oil leak anymore after driving the car.