Pitman arm help

[JB71M1]

I removed the pitman arm in order to fix a sector shaft leak and in the process I damaged the rubber at the steering linkage. Does anyone know if I can purchase just the rubber? I see that it is sold with the pitman arm but I can’t find it separately. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Stanglover]

As far as I know from when I bought a pitman arm, all they come with is a cheap piece of felt, not rubber like the original. This is a maybe, maybe not type of fix, but if the damage is not too bad, clean the the rubber thoroughly with Rubbing Alcohol and repair with black automotive GOOP. Let it cure completely and it MAY work. I did one like this and it's still in the car.
As far as fixing the sector shaft leak is concerned, read the recent post by @The Heff on rebuilding a PS box.

I might suggest searching previous threads on repairing or rebuilding PS boxes by my Guru, Bentworker. He is very knowledgeable and largely responsible for my own experience fixing my own boxes.

 

[JB71M1]

As far as I know from when I bought a pitman arm, all they come with is a cheap piece of felt, not rubber like the original. This is a maybe, maybe not type of fix, but if the damage is not too bad, clean the the rubber thoroughly with Rubbing Alcohol and repair with black automotive GOOP. Let it cure completely and it MAY work. I did one like this and it's still in the car.
As far as fixing the sector shaft leak is concerned, read the recent post by @The Heff on rebuilding a PS box.

I might suggest searching previous threads on repairing or rebuilding PS boxes by my Guru, Bentworker. He is very knowledgeable and largely responsible for my own experience fixing my own boxes.

Thanks for the info Stanglover. I’ll take a good look at it and see if it’s “repairable”. It sucks that they now come with felt rather than the original rubber. Anything to save a few cents I guess. I’ll also definitely look at the previous threads regarding the steering box.

 

[Stanglover]

Here's a pic or two of the "repaired" seal, on the left. If I remember the one on the right is sold for our cars, but is from an earlier year and does NOT fit, too small.
Also, here is a pic of what your sector shaft possibly looks like and why it's leaking.

EDIT: Thanks to Bentworker for refreshing my memory. I remember now, that I installed the repaired rubber seal after I changed the PS box mentioned in the link below.

 

[Bentworker]

https://7173mustangs.com/threads/dust-dirt-seal-on-pitman-arm-post.24180/#post-335177


https://7173mustangs.com/threads/pit-man-arm-rubber-seal.28353/

Repop seal mentioned in the threads
https://www.virginiaclassicmustang....67-70-MANUAL-STEERING-PITMAN-ARM-P226644.aspx

 

[Steve McMahan]

@Bentworker, are you saying this seal ^^^ will fit on our 71-73 pitman arms? When I bought my new, overpriced PA, the darn thing was missing that seal. In fact, the one that was on my car at the time had no seal either. I installed it anyway, thinking I would buy one later. It would be great if that seal will fit. Thanks.

 

[Bentworker]

@Bentworker, are you saying this seal ^^^ will fit on our 71-73 pitman arms? When I bought my new, overpriced PA, the darn thing was missing that seal. In fact, the one that was on my car at the time had no seal either. I installed it anyway, thinking I would buy one later. It would be great if that seal will fit. Thanks.

I can’t confirm it will fit. I too dug up a NOS seal and that is what I have been running the last 6+ years.

 

[Stanglover]

Time to eat a little humble pie!!
This conversation got me rethinking my comments on the pitman arm seal. I dug the box out that has all the PS box parts in it including seals from kits I didn't need. Amongst these were 2 original but repaired P/A seals and the so called replacement, which is really for a 67-70 manual P/A. I know the two older seals are well used and maybe distorted, BUT the difference in size is huge. The overall diameter difference is .125" between the old and new. There is no way the 67-70 seal will fit especially on the repop arm from RareParts as I mentioned before..
What this means is I lied!! I must still have the felt p.o.c on my car. Oh well I'll check it in spring when the car comes out of hibernation.
Oh, and I did put the repaired good PS box through a few turns even though a lot of the fluid had leaked out. I guess I need to find inlet/outlet plugs to stop that happening.

 

[Don C]

Energy Suspension now has a variety of ball joint boots:
https://www.energysuspensionparts.com/universal-dust-boots.asp