A steering

My '39 A steering is very wobbly. The wide front stuff seems stiff, but there's a lot of play in the wheel -almost 1/5 of a turn before the steering arm moves. I checked the bearing and it's OK. Do I have to relace the worm gear?

It seems that way, Take the gear out and see how it looks. If there is no play in any of the joints between the steering wheel and the tires it seems like it would be the gear. I dont have an A here to see what else could be wrong but im going to say its the gear.

IT seems like you could get by with a 1/5th. Ive driven some as bad as 3/8th but i would look into replacement

Since I have owned my 1941 A with loose steering for almost 50 years I have made a habit of checking play in A steering ever timeI have chance. If yours only has 1/5 round of play it is tighter than the vast majority out there.

Check the arm under the steering box where the shaft comes down out of the box. The arms are generally loose. Tighten the bolt.

Vern

A 1939 A will have the square ended steering shaft. All of them are worn so the steering arm is sloppy on the vertical steering shaft. The sector gear on the vert steering shaft has a key that wears. That's inside the steering box. The 4 tie rod ends are adjustable, take them apart clean them up grease them and snug them up. That steering arm on the bottom of the vert shaft can be shimmed with tincan material. Can you pull the steering wheel shaft in and out of the steering box? That can be shimmed. Check out this link for more on this subject.
http://search.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/fastsrch.pl
Farmall Parts book

Just fixed this problem on my 54 Super A last week. Your tractor more than likely has the square shaft / pitman arm configuration whereas the later ones use the taper / key design. (unless someone has changed to a later style at some point)

In a nut shell, if your pitman arm / shaft connection are tight, tie rod ends are good, etc. then the bearings are more than likely junk or sector gear / key has issues.

The ball bearing takes all of the axial thrust from the sector / worm gear. Mine was done for and resulted in more than 1/4 inch of vertical play of the sector gear shaft before it'd begin to turn the pitman arm and subsequently the tires. This resulted in very sloppy steering and a lot of steering wheel movement... When turning the wheel you could see the pitman arm move vertically before turning radially..

On top of that make sure that the bearing on the end of the steering shaft is good and not suffering from the same problem. Also make sure that the screw in cap is seating that bearing fully down in it's bore.

You are going to have some back lash in the gears, it is unavoidable and in no way adjustable. Have yet to see a worn out sector gear / shaft connection but I have only had a handful apart.

Photos here...

http://www.jarootfarms.com/photogallery/thumbnails.php?album=2

Hi guys,

I've been sitting here looking for info on my steering problem. I have almost 1/2 turn of play in the steering wheel before anything starts to move. I'm contemplating taking the box apart (big job for me) and trying to fix the problem. Can I take the steering shaft out and perhaps fix this without taking the whole front end off my tractor? Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

Not much you can do by just pulling the long steering wheel shaft / worm gear.

If you have the square pitman arm / shaft connection you can get in there to make sure it is tight from underneath the tractor... Otherwise the front end MUST come off to get the sector gear / shaft out.

The housing splits into two parts and is sealed by a gasket and the shafts by seals.