TO35 steering box reassembly

I have bought and downloaded the original manual from JenSales in hopes it would describe the puzzle I have about reassembling the manual steering on my 58 TO35, but it does not.
In the picture, right below the bottom of the actual column, is a cupped washer with its concave side facing down. Its outer diameter is the same as the inner diameter of the bearing.
In other pictures I have looked at, it seems like this cupped washer faces up, but I would tend to trust the original manual.
Not shown in the diagram are the ball bearings that fit somehow within the cup; I retrieved 15 of them.
I need to know how this thing goes together. If I put the bearings under the cup, a couple of them will go up the hole in the middle of the cup and into the hole in the bottom of the actual column. Maybe that doesn't matter.

So, what are these ball bearings doing? The bottom bearing in the race on the column should be taking the load, so what are these for?
At this point I don't even care what they're for, I just need to get this tractor back in action....

Thanks fro any help!

Without knowing anything about the JenSales Manuals I think you will find out the Ferguson Owners Manual, Ferguson TO 35 Parts Manual and the Ferguson TO 35 Service Manual would be the ORIGINAL manuals. It sounds as the JenSales are similar to the A&I manuals, a secondary company made them up. Sorry I can't help you with your question as I have never been into the steering column of a TO 35.

The balls run in the race to make it steer easy. If balls are pitted replace them. Use gun grease when replacing to hold balls in place. The race is hard to find. They are available but I had trouble finding the right diameter. There should be shims where the 4 bolts are for adjustment. Replace the seals also.

There should be a cage with individual holes the balls go in, held in with grease, cup end up on the bottom of the shaft. The race is probably still in the lower end of the housing, the cup end up. The piece the balls are laying in in the picture shows to be a retainer, goes under the cage/ball assy, cup down, the brass eyelet goes in the hole in the end of the shaft.

Are all the balls the same size? Should be, possible any escaped from the ball nut?

Richard L, the Jensales manual is a reprint of the original service manual.

There is a race with bearings in it that clearly fits on the bottom of the column. You can see it to the right of this cup and ball bearing business in this photo. I would call those roller bearings, though they bulge in the middle, so to speak. That's there, intact, and it matches the one that goes above the worm gear. That is in addition to the thing I'm talking about.

Are you saying that these ball bearings ALSO fit in a race? There is no evidence of a race anywhere. Things are not all chewed up inside, the balls are in good shape, etc.

How was the steering before teardown? Was there a problem?

I was just going by my drawing in the IT manual, about the same as your's, couldn't tell if those were balls
or rollers.

The balls must have gotten out of the ball screw/nut assy (item 4). If the screw is turned too far out, they
will fall out. Been a while since I've had one apart, but thinking the split tube comes out, feed them back
in, very tedious operation, but it can be done.

Well after your post I went and looked into the steering nut, and everything seemed to be fine in there. The ball bearings look too small, but it's the only place I can imagine they came from.

I decided they were leftover from someone else's effort, and put it together without them, and using the same shims as were there when I took it apart. Without actual measuring tools, the pre-load on the steering seems good. I'll get the box back on the tractor tomorrow and report back.

I spent a long day re-assembling the steering, since it turned into cutting out rotted metal and welding new onto the battery box, extracting a broken gas tank hold-down bolt (only three broken drill bits! I'm getting better!), re-tapping a hole for an air filter bolt and scrounging a correct (fine-thread) bolt, cleaning the very clogged air filter, adjusting the dashboard so the hood closes down in the right place, installing new rubber boots over the shift levers, mounting a bracket for a stabilizer bar......

Happy to report that the gears shift far better now (that was the start of this whole exercise after all). Having the springs press down on the detents in the shifter rails does make a difference.

As I said I left the mysterious ball bearings out. When I really looked at the steering box, from the bottom, I saw that the hole that receives the bottom bearing is just closed off at the bottom with a Welch plug. Since this is not a surface that is machined to some tolerance, I figured the ball bearings could not have any actual function, and I was looking at somebody else's effort or mistake from some time in the last 57 years.

The tractor steers very nicely now. It's on the trailer ready to roll today to where it actually does some work for us. This week will be moving loads of crushed stone around - in the rear scoop. After this much digging around in the steering, no front end loader will go on this tractor!

One note for anyone replacing the shift lever - order a new knob while you're at it. The threads are not the same on the new lever and the old knob won't fit. Since I wanted to make progress rather than wait for a new knob, I cut new threads on the shift lever (3/8 x 24). Luckily the new lever's threads are just slightly larger so they can be cut down, but it's a bit tricky getting it started. I could not figure out whether the threads on the new lever were metric or Imperial, as they seemed equally close to a size of each. Anyway it was another time sink I could have lived without but, now it's done. Buy a new knob.