- 324
- 91
- 28
Today I replaced the steering knuckle boot with the zipper with the help of a friend and member on steel soldiers. now neither one of us had done this.
I will explain to any one that is interested in reading this on how we went about doing it: for those that may want to do this in the future on his vehicle I first remover the 4 15/16" bolts and washers holding the seal guard protecting the steering knuckle and discard lock washers. next you need to cut and removed the stainless steel safety wire that is passed through the 12 screws to prevent them from backing out and discarded the wire. then remove the screws and pull the metal retaining
plate away from the steering knuckle.
At this time you can pull back the steering knuckle seal, this will now allow you
excess
to remove the inner retaining clamp using a screwdriver. with inner retaining clamp removed now you can cut the damaged steering knuckle seal and discard it.Now comes the messy part, get a lot of paper towels and or rags to remove as much of the grease as possible. clean the surface of the knuckle from the groove on the knuckle housing of any grease dirt etc. I used gasoline to clean and it give me a nice area to wort with for installing the new steering knuckle seal.
After all of the above I put the new steering knuckle with the cloth side of the zipper facing the steering knuckle.
(when you looking at the seal you will want the seal to show the two bands that the inner retaining clamp will fit in between and the under side will have a single , I then coated the zipper with a good amount of silicone adhesive to seal the zipper closed but, not as much silicone to the start of the zipper where the retaining clamp will be installed to secure the seal to the axle housing. I then let the silicone cure for 24 hours as recommended
Take the steering knuckle and get it to slip fit into the groove in the axle housing. with that done adjusting the seal to align it with the holes for the 12 screws to attach the retaining plate, with that done gently fold the seal back towards the engine
and take a large C clamp and secure it against the square section on the axle housing.
Now install the inner retaining clamp with just enough pressure to check the alignment with the holes in the seal again, whether or not you may have to rotate it forward or back to match the holes. if the holes are a match and line up secure the inner retaining clamp. then install the retaining plate and 12 screws, with the safety wire.
At this point remove the 1/4" Allen set screws located on both sides of the steering knuckle housing and replace them with a 3/8 " zerk fitting (grease fittings) and fill with a good grade of bearing grease. once done remove zerk fittings and replace them with the Allen set screws that you removed.
Grease the upper and lower steering king pins.
Some things we did that helped: Remover as much grease as we could to have a clean and dry knuckle to work with.
Remove the shocks, to give us more room
Pull the hood open to give us more light
Remove the inner fender skirt also gave us more light.
Repack the steering knuckle through the zerk fittings into a sealed seal.
TM maintenance for steering knuckle boot :
TM 9-2320-272-24-1
section 3 page 3-430 3-431
I hope this will help some.
Last edited: