300U Steering Gear

Dellbertt

Member
I have had this 300U manual steering for over 20 years with no problems with the steering box at all but now I broke it. I have steel girders on a bridge across a creek with a 4 ft. drop on one side of one approach that was covered with tall weeds and I forgot and drove straight off. Tried backing, the left front was straight but the right was cocked to the left. I disconnected the mover and drawbar then walked the tractor forward down the drop and reconnected everything and went to the barn.
Now the right front has twice the play as the left and I cannot turn right past center. With the fronts off the ground I can turn easily side to side but with any weight on front I cannot turn right at all.
Nuckles and spindles all check out fine. Probably sector gear teeth broke.
Every post I have seen the steering gearbox is removed for repair. It seems to me if I remove the the VR and the pitman's the right side cover of the box could be removed to fix the gears. I'll make a chute to catch the gear oil.
Here's the question - Is there a reason not to remove the right side cover of the box while it is still on the tractor.
Why do most people remove the box to repair the gears.
 
I've had just the right side off of mine but its a pain in the neck. It is a lot easier to work on completely off the tractor. There is a tapered pin that has to be removed along with all the bolts. I don't
believe parts are available to repair it. When you find out whats wrong it would be great if you let us know.
 
it is a lot easier to work on the steering box off the
tractor, I busted my sector gears many years ago, I
took it apart and took the broken gears/arms to a
good machine shop and they fixed me
up...reasonable $$$ too
 
In the first post I meant disconnect the mower not mover.
An update on steering box. I got the side cover off without removing the box from tractor. Hope it will go back together as easy.
Sector gears are good, solid and shiny. Lever gear knob that goes into cam gear is good. Plenty of grease in box. Actually inside of box looks good as new.
The left side has about 2" of play in the steering wheel and the right side has about 8" of play and the right tire wobbles more.
The excess play in the right must be worn gears on the lever shaft(L) and gear shaft(R) not meshing close.
Not being able to turn to the right with weight on the front must be some damage in the knuckle. When I drove off bridge it did break the turning stop on the top arm. I am suspicious of the top and bottom bushings on the knuckle shaft.
Will update.
Dell
 
Here is how the steering has come out so far.

I have the 4/3 tooth gear set. There are several different gear sets for these tractors, some have 5/4 teeth gears, some have adjustment screws that thread into the end of the gear and some simply press against the end of the gear. Some teeth are tapered lengthwise, mine are not. Some teeth sets have double bevels and some are stub gears. Not all shafts are the same length. Make sure you match when buying replacement gears.

The center tooth on the my gear shaft was cracked full length at the base but not loose. My local machine shop magician ground out the crack and rebuilt the tooth for $50. I can't see where he worked on it. He also rebuilt the lever gear cam that rides in the worm for $30.

All went back together easily without removing the box from the tractor. I did not remove the worm gear or bushings which probably would make a difference.

I removed all play from the gear shaft with the left side adjustment screw. Then with the fronts off the ground I adjusted the lever shaft with the right side screw until I have free stop to stop movement without any drag. I did this by moving both the right and left front tire by hand to mimic groung friction. I had to leave some end play on this gear because of some midmovement drag but I can live with it and I will also try to impove this adjustment with use.

I also had way too much toe out. I used the manual instruction for setting toe in but then I tweaked it by driving the tractor full turn left and right and made sure both tires turned the same angle, this made the biggest difference.


It still has some slight wobble in the right but it now steers as easily as any manual steer tractor.

One other thing, someone years ago replaced the steering box filler plug with a grease fitting. I used a whole general purpose grease cartridge in the box. In my opinion this makes a lot of sense and I would recommend it.
 

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