94 Marathon Steering Slop

[bugmenot]

Hey all,

I have a 94 marathon with the 2pg engine that has a mile of slop in the steering. All of the ball joints were shot, so the first thing I did was replace and grease those. The steering was a little tighter, but still sloppier than I would like, so I took apart the steering box and cleaned it all out. The gear that sits in the box looked like it was in great shape as did the shaft that's attached to the ball joint, but there was a ton of play on the gear that's attached to the steering column itself. It looks like there's a bushing in the steering column in the diagrams in the manual, but I can't figure out how to get that gear off to replace that bushing. Has anyone tired to remove that gear? Attached pic is of the newly painted steering column (in hindsight, I probably should have waited until AFTER I fixed the steering, but oh well . Thanks!

[3doghouse]

Bugmenot, this post almost made it to its first birthday without a reply. Were you able how to figure out how to solve this?