The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

hi i am a newbie to the deta, i am from republic of ireland,
i am doing up a dexta, the steering is quite bad , when its on the road with a bit of speed the wheels are wobbling like a mad thing, and its not felt in the steering ,there is huge play in the steering , both wheels wobble like crazy , i opened up the the top steering nut the other day to see what can be replaced or not , i found the top nut , it was not wound all the way down on the worm , when i did turn all the way down i couldnt fit back the steering wheel, it was miles away from it.
what are shims, i hear people talking about them , i thought they were a spacer of some sort.
where most likely is my problem and how do i fix it ,
in lay mans terms would be really appreciated

hi, mo chara , welcome to the site, wheel wobble can be caused by a lot of things
including the steering box, worn king pins , front axel pin ,missing spacers, on pin
worn ball ends at the foot rests to name but a few doing one of these if you are lucky might
solve your problem , on my dexta i had to do all of the above along with new ball joints, to
get it right, after 40+ years these are usually all worn if they have never been replaced before
the good news replacement parts are not too dear,i would start with the easy things first
the s/box on its own may not solve the wobble but if it is bad then it will need done anyway
the shimes you spoke about are in the bottom end of box below the diesel tank
good luck sky blue

Hi Mo Chara, welcome on board to the most important place you will ever visit. This forum is packed with dexta experts who will endeavour to resolve all your dexta problems.
You will need to adjust the wheel bearings, also its possible the spindle bushes are worn. By the way shims are thin slices of metal, just like thin washers, adding them is to loosen the steering and removing is to tighten. They can be present at the top of the steering and at the steering box.

hey skyblue, brian thanks for the reply with the info,
i have the king spindle kit ready to put in , i was wondering how to i get the bush out, top and bottom , i had it apart yesterday , they didnt seem bad, there must be a tool to push them out or pull them .
also i opened the top end of the steering box, i seen no shims, i took off the top nut.
does that nut have to be screwed all the way down, if i do this then the steering wheel wont go on , its down too far.
so i have to screw it back up again, i may do the the top race of bearings too looking at it yesterday , they are wore.
looking at ball joints etc, they are not great but i think the most wear seems to be in the bottom of the box, when i open that next week i dont know what to expect to be able to replace in it. there is only the top kit available as a repair kit.
any advice on this would be great.

Get yourself a Dexta Workshop Manual. It will tell you everything.
May be able to download one for free, otherwise available on ebay for a few££.
All the best with your new darling.

the bushes can be cut with a sharp chesel or old screw driver then squshed in on themselves
to drop out the new ones will just tap in with a mallet or piece of wood an a hammer
check athe king pin spindles ar not worn , is mise sky blue

I replaced top nut and bearing on mine, from what I can remember the nut is only screwed down far enough to also get the bearing and cover on, check out dexta steering on the net

INfo can be found on Steffans wor kshop manual page near the top of this page

Some info here:
http://www.fordsontractorpages.nl/phpbb ... f=3&t=3388

Hi Mochara and welcome to like minded enthusiasts.
I had terrible wheel wobble and tried everything to cure it.
Finally succeeded when I replaced the bolts securing the radius arms to the front axle.
These bolts are the same as the bolts holding the rear wings onto the rear axle.
Jerry
Three dextas
Bath
UK

cheers guys for all the information on the steering box
i opened up the steering box the other night , i took off the fuel tank and took the whole box out and put it on the bench
i found water and gunk where there was supposed to be oil, obviously not been looked after in years ,
there was absolutely no shims left on it , some one else obviously tried to tighten it up before me and took them out, from the top and the side.
no oil seals either.
should i put shims back into it, or will this make the steering play worse.
the ball joints are quite bad in it, i have to replace them also
i dont know now if the steering box is badly worn or not.
doesnt seem major

mochara wrote:should i put shims back into it, or will this make the steering play worse?

The Workshop Manual tells you how to shim the lower box.
If the lower box is so worn that there is no gap left to shim - that's a problem!
Is it really that bad?
Some photos of the worn parts would be helpful.

aye, ill post a few up, i am just learning to be honest, so i expected shims to takeout to make the steering tighter i guess, maybe it might not be that bad , there is a fair bit of play in the box though with the steering wheel on .
ill post