TRW steering Box ?

[eurekagary]

Well I just realized that I never put anything into my "new" 17 year old TRW steering box. It was installed a long time ago. I haven't driven much, less then 10@ miles, so I am not concerned about any damage. I have looked at a bunch of site and keep gettin 2 answers so I will try you guys.
Do you use 90 weight gear oil or grease ? It's a TRW steering box fitted to a ball joint front end.
Thanks
Gary

[langan]

Good question. I would do geese. Opened up some and can't say it smelled like a diff.

[DosPerrosMotorsports]

when installing....do NOT forget to "shim" the pitman arm

[jsturtlebuggy]

All the replacement steering boxes I seen have grease in them. The original steering boxes came with gear oil in them. The originals boxes always started seeping/leaking after years of service.
On my Kick Out it still has the original steering box on it from 1969 and it seeps. I replaced the oil in it with wheel bearing grease.

[lastmanx]

original king pin beam boxes take oil. ball joint beam boxes don't need oil. the easy way to tell them apart; the oil fill has a square nut plug that unscrews on top to fill. the other has no plug to unscrew. they look different.

[jsturtlebuggy]

They all used 90wt gear oil in the steering boxes from the factory.
As other car companies have done, VW remove places to lubricate moving parts.
Ball joint front ends when they first came out had plastic plugs in the ball joints you could remove and install Zerk fittings for greasing them. After a few years the ball joints came without the plastic plugs, and there was no way of greasing them unless you drilled them to add the Zerks fittings.
The steering boxes were the same way on ball joint beams. The filler plug was replaced with 2 plastic plugs in the top you could remove to check the oil level.
Yes in the shops I worked in, we remove one of the plugs to check oil level during servicing of the car.

[eurekagary]

Yes mine is on a ball joint front end. It had the plastic covers. I need to install the zerk fittings. It was empty when I check it. Filled it and wow big difference. Filling it was not fun. Trying to get 90 Wt into it at that angle and thick oil made it very frustrating.
Do you know what size zerks are?
Thanks

[jsturtlebuggy]

It has been many years since seeing a ball joint that had the plastic caps in them.
I think it was 8x1.00mm the same as the beam Zerk fittings.
Best way to tell is remove cap and measure with calipers.
My local NAPA store sells difference sizes of Zerks both in metric and standard thread, and even has the one you just hammer into place after drilling a hole.