Posted By: rvw
steering box - 02/09/14 03:36 AM
What color is the power steering box to be? Is it painted low gloss black or left natural?
steering box
Posted By: Stewpar
Re: steering box - 02/09/14 04:13 AM
Natural 
Posted By: 71birdJ68
Re: steering box - 02/09/14 04:20 AM
My box was black.
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: steering box - 02/09/14 04:53 AM
Cheap black paint which more than likely flaked off due to the poor adhesion at the factory.
Posted By: DAYCLONA
Re: steering box - 02/09/14 04:55 AM
Quote:
What color is the power steering box to be? Is it painted low gloss black or left natural?
Factory cheesey gloss black
Posted By: autoxcuda
Re: steering box - 02/09/14 05:24 AM
There was a guy here who's dad or/and himself worked at the factory that make power steering box assemblies. He said they were all black. Or all supposed to be black, barring something extremely strange happening during production.
Posted By: Silver70
Re: steering box - 02/09/14 07:17 AM
I just cleaned and reinstalled one from a 69 gtx, it was completely caked in grease... there was no paint on it anywhere. This is a 16k original mile car.
Posted By: 68gtx
Re: steering box - 02/09/14 04:45 PM
My 68 GTX has 60k on it all original. The box has no paint on it at all.
Posted By: rvw
Re: steering box - 02/09/14 05:09 PM
The car is a 62 LA built Dodge Dart
Posted By: autoxcuda
Re: steering box - 02/09/14 08:40 PM
low miles 69 Dart and 71 Demon built at LA plant have black power steering boxes.
The paint was not great on these boxes. And they get covered in oil from leaky power steering components. Same reason drivers side lower control arm bushings go out more than passenger side: power steering fluid leaks on them and eats the rubber up.
If you pressure wash or use agressive cleaners, you'll knock the paint right off.
The paint was not great on these boxes. And they get covered in oil from leaky power steering components. Same reason drivers side lower control arm bushings go out more than passenger side: power steering fluid leaks on them and eats the rubber up.
If you pressure wash or use agressive cleaners, you'll knock the paint right off.
Posted By: FJ5_Fish
Re: steering box - 02/10/14 05:39 PM
x2
They could be either black, black or sometimes black....during the 68-71 era for sure.
Can't say on the other years for 100% sure.
They could be either black, black or sometimes black....during the 68-71 era for sure.
Can't say on the other years for 100% sure.
Posted By: Silver70
Re: steering box - 02/10/14 07:33 PM
I have a hard time believing they all were black no matter what anyone here says they've heard or read somewhere. Leaf springs are another one that could go either way, but even the rusty ones when black, you can still find traces of paint. The box on the car I mentioned, I have no doubt it was not painted and was never removed, not rusty, etc...
Posted By: FJR doc
Re: steering box - 02/10/14 07:51 PM
Perhaps there is confusion regarding power steering and manual boxes. My 1970 Duster 340 with power steering had a black box. I believe that manual boxes were not painted.
Posted By: FJ5_Fish
Re: steering box - 02/10/14 07:58 PM
Quote:
I have a hard time believing they all were black no matter what anyone here says they've heard or read somewhere. Leaf springs are another one that could go either way, but even the rusty ones when black, you can still find traces of paint. The box on the car I mentioned, I have no doubt it was not painted and was never removed, not rusty, etc...
Well....It has nothing to do with "heard or read". It is based on decades of many here owning many, many cars....and observing hundreds of fine survivors....and networking with a lot of people that have seen and have actively documented many more since the mid to late 70's. But - If anyone wants to leave their power steering box natural....that is their call. We are all here to learn and/or help.
Posted By: burdar
Re: steering box - 02/10/14 08:24 PM
My 73 Challenger's box showed no signs of paint. It was just greasy and rusty. I wire wheeled it years ago and sprayed it with cast blast paint. It started rusting through the paint so my plan was to get it down to bare metal and RPM it.
While stripping off the cast blast, I saw a lot of soft black paint on the plastic scraper. Sure enough, there was black paint under the surface rust.
I think if more people soaked these boxes in EvapoRust, they would see the black. The rust really grows around the paint and no black can be seen.
While stripping off the cast blast, I saw a lot of soft black paint on the plastic scraper. Sure enough, there was black paint under the surface rust.
I think if more people soaked these boxes in EvapoRust, they would see the black. The rust really grows around the paint and no black can be seen.
Posted By: kentj340
Re: steering box - 02/11/14 10:58 AM
Quote:
Perhaps there is confusion regarding power steering and manual boxes. My 1970 Duster 340 with power steering had a black box. I believe that manual boxes were not painted.
This topic is about power steering boxes, but my 69 Barracuda 340 with manual fast steering box is definitely bare aluminum.
Maybe power steering boxes were iron castings with black paint, and manual boxes were bare aluminum castings?
Posted By: Anonymous
Re: steering box - 02/11/14 02:34 PM
Manual steering boxes were always made out of aluminum and not painted. The power steering boxes cast iron castings were given a quick gloss black paint to prevent from rusting. As others have said, it was not that great of a paint job as it was never primed or prepped correctly for the paint to last. Add leaking power steering fluid and other oils/greases, the paint separated from the cast iron metal easily.
Posted By: DaveRS23
Re: steering box - 02/11/14 04:13 PM
And often, the power boxes were not even completely painted. I have had several that only had paint on the top, but was heavy enough to run down the sides kinda like stripes. So the bottoms had nothing but a few drips.