Corvette Steering Box

[Jerry C.]

I have GM#5677649 steering box and was told it was from a Corvette. Anyone know? Thanks in advance.

[Joe L.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

I have GM#5677649 steering box and was told it was from a Corvette. Anyone know? Thanks in advance.

Jerry-----


That's the CASTING number for the Corvette steering gear HOUSING. As far as I can tell, it was a Corvette-only piece.

[Jerry C.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

Thanks Any idea what year?

[Joe L.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

Thanks Any idea what year?

Jerry----

All 1963-82 used this housing. Some other features of the ASSEMBLIES changed over the years, but the housing was the same. Some easily discerned differences for the ASSEMBLIES:

63-68---cast iron cover; 69-82 aluminum cover

63-VL69--- worm shaft with no "flat spot" for indexing; VL69-82 worm shaft with "flat spot" for indexing

[Jim S.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

The steering gear for the 1963 through 1982 Corvette was unique. It only had Corvette C2/C3 useage.
Jim

[Gary R.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

Some other changes to the boxes, the 63-68 used a different lower seal then the later boxes, The later box seals are black rubber type where the first design was a steel backed seal, single lip.
The castings changed too, the early boxes up to around 76 had flat castings on the mounting ears, the later boxes have cast in shoulder around the holes.

The cover bushings were changed to a thin cupped bushing around 78.

The later boxes have date coding on the back, the earlier ones don't.

The 70-73? have a cast "T" in a circle. Not sure what that means but it's not on all of them.

The 5/8 hex, 7/16-20 nut is unique and hard to find.

I've blueprinted a lot of these and those are what I've seen. I've seen some "new" boxes. This are not very well built from the ones I've seen. They do not have the "s" cast into them, use a socket head lash screw and a steel end nut. I have no idea who makes them or where they come from. Not sure if they're still being sold but something you might want to check out if you buy a used box.

[Dale C.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

More ???'S on the above, I took a look at my 68 BB steering box and the cast iron cover plate had the check & lube markings and a small casting pad with a 23 on it and maybe another no on this pad, then there is a 6723 on the cover and also a faint pair of stamped no,s. I could not find the 5677649 or the other GM #'s of 5677642 or 5677646 in sec 6.803 (parts book) on the steering box. Are they hard to spot? I guess I don't know what I'm looking for or at and any help would be appreciated.

Dale Carlson (33147)

[Joe L.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

Some other changes to the boxes, the 63-68 used a different lower seal then the later boxes, The later box seals are black rubber type where the first design was a steel backed seal, single lip.
The castings changed too, the early boxes up to around 76 had flat castings on the mounting ears, the later boxes have cast in shoulder around the holes.

The cover bushings were changed to a thin cupped bushing around 78.

The later boxes have date coding on the back, the earlier ones don't.

The 70-73? have a cast "T" in a circle. Not sure what that means but it's not on all of them.

The 5/8 hex, 7/16-20 nut is unique and hard to find.

I've blueprinted a lot of these and those are what I've seen. I've seen some "new" boxes. This are not very well built from the ones I've seen. They do not have the "s" cast into them, use a socket head lash screw and a steel end nut. I have no idea who makes them or where they come from. Not sure if they're still being sold but something you might want to check out if you buy a used box.

Gary-----

Yes, the much later SERVICE boxes are not of Saginaw manufacture. I believe they are manufactured in Canada by some supplier to GM. These boxes have no Saginaw "S" logo on them just as you described.

What's unique about the hex nut used in conjunction with the adjuster? It appears just like a standard 7/16-20 jam nut to me.

Addendum

I figured out what's unique about the nut; it should have been obvious---the 5/8", non-standard, across-the-flats dimension. That IS a difficult to find configuration.

[Gary R.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

Hi Joe,
If I have the story correct, the orignal tooling was sold to a Canadian mfg when Saginaw went out, there were some QC concerns after awhile. Then the tooling ended up going back to NY state and lost track of it then. I got this from a very reliable source, but who knows.

I can tell you the boxes I've been sent to rebuild that were not the original Saginaws were not a high quality box, in fact I returned them and ended up rebuilding the original boxes for those cars.

I have not found a source for the 5/8 hex 7/16-20 jam nut. I made my own when needed. Most times they are on the box when I get them though.

[Jim S.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

You can sell the drawings and even the equipment to manufacture the gear box but you can't sell the expertise that it takes to make it all come together.

Jim

[Joe L.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

You can sell the drawings and even the equipment to manufacture the gear box but you can't sell the expertise that it takes to make it all come together.

Jim

Jim----


Yup! That's the difference. You can send someone to the university to study art. You can grant that person a doctorate in art. You can sell that person paint and canvas. However, that doesn't mean the person will be able to re-create the Mona Lisa.

[Joe L.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

Hi Joe,
If I have the story correct, the orignal tooling was sold to a Canadian mfg when Saginaw went out, there were some QC concerns after awhile. Then the tooling ended up going back to NY state and lost track of it then. I got this from a very reliable source, but who knows.

I can tell you the boxes I've been sent to rebuild that were not the original Saginaws were not a high quality box, in fact I returned them and ended up rebuilding the original boxes for those cars.

I have not found a source for the 5/8 hex 7/16-20 jam nut. I made my own when needed. Most times they are on the box when I get them though.

Gary-----


I'm interested to know what problems you found with the non-Saginaw-manufactured steering gear boxes? Are the internal parts even usable to SERVICE original gear boxes? While these gear boxes are available as an assembly, very few of the internal parts are available separately from GM.

[Stuart F.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

How good are the rebuilding kits offered by some of the Vette Parts houses? Are they worth the money and effort to get and install?

Stu Fox

p.s. Don't need one yet, but keeping them in mind for the future.

[Gary R.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

Gary-----


I'm interested to know what problems you found with the non-Saginaw-manufactured steering gear boxes? Are the internal parts even usable to SERVICE original gear boxes? While these gear boxes are available as an assembly, very few of the internal parts are available separately from GM.

Joe,
The"new" non-Saginaw boxes I've been sent in the past were lousy, plain and simple. The internal parts may have been interchangable the new gears were so bad you couldn't hold on center lash. I've had 100K mile Saginaws that setup better. I may still have one of those boxes here in my scrap bin. I won't take them in. I still can get everything for the Saginaw boxes and can build them to tighter spec's as I machine fit the bushings and take the time to set up the tolerances to tigher spec's then what I've seen.

Another area of lousy work I see are those rag joint rebuild kits for $20 or so. They are the worst thing I've seen out there. I see a lot of guys using those to save $80 over the GM joint only to rip them out and buy the GM anyway. I used to bring one of those to shows to show the difference between the GM joints. If I find one I'll bring it next week to Carlilse.

[Joe L.]

Re: Corvette Steering Box

Joe,
The"new" non-Saginaw boxes I've been sent in the past were lousy, plain and simple. The internal parts may have been interchangable the new gears were so bad you couldn't hold on center lash. I've had 100K mile Saginaws that setup better. I may still have one of those boxes here in my scrap bin. I won't take them in. I still can get everything for the Saginaw boxes and can build them to tighter spec's as I machine fit the bushings and take the time to set up the tolerances to tigher spec's then what I've seen.

Another area of lousy work I see are those rag joint rebuild kits for $20 or so. They are the worst thing I've seen out there. I see a lot of guys using those to save $80 over the GM joint only to rip them out and buy the GM anyway. I used to bring one of those to shows to show the difference between the GM joints. If I find one I'll bring it next week to Carlilse.

Gary-----


Yes, I NEVER recommend that folks use the steering coupling REPAIR KIT unless there is no way to obtain the the complete coupler. In my experience, the complete coupler is the ONLY way to go. Period.