International AR-110 Ute

Chain inside some plastic hose is a great idea, thanks Zuffen

Power Steering Pinion shaft oil leak

The Inter started leaking power steering fluid and on investigation, I found that it was coming from the top of the pinion shaft meaning the pinion shaft top oil seal had failed. If you have never played with power steering before it is not difficult and the photos below will hopefully give you some idea of what to do to replace the pinion shaft oil seal in a Series 1 / Series 11 Jag power steering rack (the one that has the tall valve body).

This is a photo of the valve body with the pinion shaft (removed from a Series 1 / Series 11 Jag power steering rack

The oil seal that needs to be replaced is underneath the top oil seal below the circlip

The oil seal on the left is the faulty oil seal (shown upside down) and the seal on the RHS of the photo sits on top of the oil seal and is held in place by a circlip (I call this the secondary Seal)

In This photo the pinion shaft has been removed from the valve body and the new seal is pressed inside the valve body housing and rests on the needle bearing race shown in the photo. This is easy to do if you have the valve body out of the vehicle, however in my case, I elected to replace the seal with the valve body and pinion shaft in situ.

Here is my leaky valve body in situ.....I need to remove the intermediate shaft between the steering column and the Jag universal joint that you can see on the LHS of the rusty looking return line

Getting seals out can be fiddley but in this case I removed the circlip, wrapped some rag around the splined part of the pinion shaft, started the engine and the hydraulic pressure of the power steering pump pushed out the faulty seal.
To fit the new seal in situ is difficult with the pinion shaft in place because the new seal is a tight fit and you can't position the seal low enough in the valve body. To remedy this I made up a seal insertion tool allowing me to drive the seal into the correct position in the valve body. The top part of the seal insertion tool you see in the photo below is the bottom part of the tool which keeps the seal aligned as you hammer the tool in place over the seal.

Not the best of photos, but this is the seal insertion tool in position just before I hit it with a hammer to press the seal into the valve body

Seal correctly placed in valve body

Secondary seal in place on top of new seal

Circlip in position before final clipping into locating ring

The Jag purists and hydraulic guys will probably cringe at my method of pinion shaft seal replacement but it was simple, effective and worked without damage to the seal or valve body.

Thanks for looking in

great info, thanks for taking the time and photos for us blokes called muggins :blink:

grahamJB would the seal life not benefit from maybe some heat insulating wrap around the exhaust pipe

Good point oldgmc and yes some insulating heat wrap would keep it cooler but I have heard bad reports on using this type of insulation. The reports that I have read say the exhaust pipe can't cool down properly if insulating heat wrap is used which can lead to cracking of the exhaust pipe.

If any forum members have used exhaust insulation please post up your results and whether it not it is worth using
GB

You could also make up a stainless heat shield
Jim

Update
Took the AR-110 to a kids for cancer charity event last weekend where there were a lot of nice old cars, utes and trucks on display.

A couple of photos of the Inter at the show

Graham your ute gets better every time I see it mate top job and hope you had fun there

Paul

Looking good. ....and you even managed to get a Stude in shot for me, ta!

The cruise and enjoy phase is good.

Jarrod.

Paul - I have notched up 10,000km on the AR-110 now and is a pleasure to drive...fuel economy in the city is woeful at 14mpg but on a country run it returns 26mpg which is better than expected.

Another shot of the Studebaker for Jarrod