Old Member - New to the board

[Jim S.]

I have owned Corvettes for the last 30 years. I retired from Delphi Saginaw Steering (formally Saginaw Steering Gear Division, GMC) in 2001 after 39 years in the Steering Systems Section, Product Engineering. I have been participating on the Corvette Forum the last 7 years. I have quite an extensive collection of engineering and service literature relative to the C2 and C3 Corvettes. Saginaw was design responsible and manufactured nearly all of the steering components for those vehicles.

Jim Shea

[Rob M.]

Re: Old Member - New to the board

Hi Jim,

Welcome on the board and thanks for yours (and your colleagues) contribution to our beloved cars!!!

greetings,
Rob.

[Kenneth B.]

Re: Old Member - New to the board

Hi Jim,

Welcome on the board and thanks for yours (and your colleagues) contribution to our beloved cars!!!

greetings,
Rob.

I agree. I built a lot of the patterns for the CI housings for the SSGD back in the day. Glad you joined us.
KEN

[John H.]

Re: Old Member - New to the board

Hi, Jim - great to see you here! Your tech papers are outstanding.

[Dick W.]

Re: Old Member - New to the board

Welcome aboard Jim. I have enjoyed reading you answers to technical questions.

[Joe L.]

Re: Old Member - New to the board

I have owned Corvettes for the last 30 years. I retired from Delphi Saginaw Steering (formally Saginaw Steering Gear Division, GMC) in 2001 after 39 years in the Steering Systems Section, Product Engineering. I have been participating on the Corvette Forum the last 7 years. I have quite an extensive collection of engineering and service literature relative to the C2 and C3 Corvettes. Saginaw was design responsible and manufactured nearly all of the steering components for those vehicles.

Jim Shea

Jim----


Great to have you here. I look forward to your contributions (intellectual not financial, of course).

[Duke W.]

Re: Old Member - New to the board

Perhaps you can tell us when GM switched from Mil-L-2105D gear oil in the steering gear to grease.

My understanding is that the gear oil was used through '62, but the "new" steering gear for '63 marked the first use of grease.

The '63 Corvette Shop Manual is completely vague on the subject as it only refers to "steering gear lubricant" with no further description or specification.

Duke

[Jim S.]

Re: Old Member - New to the board

Duke,
I knew that questions like yours would start coming up from this board. The questions that I got over on the Corvette Forum were more to the point of keeping things running.

I don't know the answer to your question on the grease versus oil. The answer may be in some 50 year old files at The Gear. I will make note of your question. Unfortunately, I am quite sure that there is no one at Saginaw still working there that would have that answer.

The real problem is that with Delphi is in bankruptsy and selling off Saginaw. Right now the engineers at Saginaw are a lot more interested in helping to make a profit for the potential new owner rather than assisting a retiree like in searching the archives.

Hopefully, better times are ahead.

BTW, it would seem logical that the change from the roller follower steering gear design in 1963 would also be the time that they probably made the change to grease from oil.
Jim