Drag link ??? Help

[athawk11]

Hi Jon,
Welcome to the 3A Page.� It's been a while since I've assembled a drag link, so hopefully I'm not pointing you in the wrong direction.

This is a pretty good additional thread describing the challenges.� At some point, we all came to the consensus that Willys Overland forgot to draw in one of the ball seats in the first drawing.� You can see the improved drawing (2nd drawing) that shows the additional ball seat. (listed as #3 in the first drawing and �C� in the second drawing...on the right side of the drawing)

http://www.cj3apage.com/cgi-bin/3Ayabb26/YaBB.pl?num=1455985447/8

This is the contents of the kits that vendors are offering�



Using the second more accurate drawing, the bell-crank ball will fit between the B and C in the drawing.� The steering arm ball�or Pitman arm ball will fit between the C and C in the drawing.� Hope this helps.

[JonC]

Thank you for your help.  I bought the kit and it had 4 ball seats which confused me. Your response was very helpful.  You reference a drawing but I don't know how to pull it up, nor have I figured out how to access 3rd party hosting in photo bucket.
I would like to post a photo but I don't know how to do that yet either. 
My next question will be about the Ross steering box. I opened the box, cleaned out all the grease, removed the zerk fitting, and have a plug for the filler hole. Now that it is all cleaned out, it appears that there is a ball bearing missing. Or should there be a gap about the size of one ball bearing in the race?

[specialty]

to bring up the drawing just click on the link Tim provided, I did and it came right up.
Now for the steering box the ball bearings you speak of are for the steering wheel shaft. It runs from the box up to the steering wheel. You can purchase the kit to rebuild the box. It will contain the 2 bronze bushings where the steering arm that connects to the drag link is located. If the the steering arm has any play or leaks these bushings need to be replaced. The ball bearings you speak of are located at the top and bottom of the worm gear that runs up to the steering wheel. you will also need the kit to rebuild this if you are missing a ball. probably worn out anyway. It will have the bearings and the shims to set this up.
I found while doing my Willys if I googled or searched the topic of what I was working on I could find plenty of videos, drawings, and parts to accomplish this. Since these parts are part of the steering, it is very important that these parts be set up properly for obvious reasons. Kaiser Willys has a instruction video on this and many other things you will run across. Good luck.

[athawk11]

Here is the drawing.  I borrowed this from Willys M Jeeps.  They were nice enough to draw in the pitman arm and bell crank balls...

[JonC]

Thank you for the confirmation.  After reading a number of posts, I realized that often the reproduction parts have small differences than the originals. One must be intuitive in putting it back together.
I just pulled the upper bearings out of my Ross steering box.  I discovered the steering tube and spiral gear is bent and there are 3 ball bearings missing.  So I'm going to order the parts.  Who knows what else the previous owner has done? Having you as a resource has lowered my anxiety level.  Thank you.

[mtnman37879]

I have found that every Ross box I've opened are short a couple of bearings. I think that's factory.