My 1983 Westphalia steering became stiff yesterday with some real sticky sections. Today, to isolate the problem, I unhooked the tie rods. Since the problem was coming from the steering rack, I pushed a bunch of grease into the steering rack tube on the rack shaft side. After working the steering back and forth for a while it seems to have freed it up, at least temporarily. I drive through a creek everyday so it makes sense that the mechanism has acquired some rust or some dirt. But then I looked in the Bentley manual and spotted this: "Caution. Only use special steering gear grease part # AOF 063 000 04 to lubricate steering gear" I used regular wheel bearing grease and I'm wondering what it would be incompatible with...the rubber boot, seals? Would CV grease (moly) be a better choice. What I want to do is pack some grease in the rubber boot so that it will work itself into the unit over time, hopefully extending it's life. I could also wire brush the rack slots but they didn't look too bad, just had a red-orange coloring. Any ideas about this? John |
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