Alright so I've came up with nothing so far on my own...still looking into options but if anyone other there could help me find a set of steering box bearings and races and/or some sort of alternative bearings that are a close enough fit so I can get my 320 steering again!? I've found a NSK bearing number on the race (NSK BT18-10) but have had absolutely zero luck finding that number or cross referencing it to anything. I've also measuered the spacing/bearing to a OD: 47mm ID: 17.45mm Width: 11mm so looking into a sealed bearing conversion possibly but no call back from the bearing manufacturer yet and I want...NEED to be able to steer this back into the garage to keep wrenching on her! Working in the sun in the big garage with a gravel driveway sucks! lol

What kind of bearing is it? Since you have the dimensions it might be possible to just manually browse thru catalogs from different manufacturers like National or Timken as well?

Just thought I'd ask: what's wrong with your steering box?

It's an old style caged ball bearings. It was binding up so I took it apart to do some diagnosing and to my surprise I found the cages chewed up and ruined and ball bearings everywhere. The particular one is discontinued and no luck with cross referencing it to anything. I ordered the closest set of sealed bearings to that size to see if I can convert it to them so I'll keep you posted if I conjure up a "fix" to the problem

Rusty320

If you can post of pic of the bearing I can stop by IBT here in KCKS and see if they can match it up with something as they have access to a full range of bearing manufacturers that some places do not.

Andy

Just to confirm the red circled bearings is the part in question -



Andy

Sure are..and that part number is not available through NSK or any other bearing manufacturer that I can find so far...so I'm at a loss, unless the sealed bearings I ordered actually work like I hope...but haven't been delivered yet : (

Okay thanks for the confirmation. I'll start looking into something.

Looked at a couple of early Ford/Chevrolet catalogs from LMC, but LMC only sales the complete assembly - no individual parts break down. Next stop here is eBay "vintage (ford/chevrolet) steering worm bearing" so will see what we get with this search.

The BMC stuff I have looked at is all rack-and-pinion - so no luck here. Next will look at Austin A40/50 and the homely Nash Metropolitan.

An expensive alternative is to find a bearing with the same center diameter and have an outer race machined. I looked into this for the front inner wheel bearing, but remembered my one 320 came with an extra set of front hubs complete with bearings so looked no further into costs.

Andy

I appreciate the help. I've emailed and called about 6or7 different bearing comapnies and just waiting to hear back from them...no luck yet. The only option I could think of was order a set of sealed bearing that are OD: 47mm ID: 17mm Width: 14mm...which is the closest to the factory size I could find. Having my buddy machine the ID to 17.45mm and see if that will work. Bearings should be here by Friday so if I get time to get them in and tested I'll keep everyone posted because this seems to be the only option I've found so far.

Rusty320,

If this works, please let us know the bearing part number and manufacturer that you machine to fit. Heading into KC Friday and will stop by a few places and see what results we get.

Andy

Are the 520/521 steering column assemblies the same as the 320?

Not a clue, have not tried to cross any of the 320 steering part number to the 520 yet. I did just get my set of sealed bearings today so I'll be wrenching on it tomorrow to see if I can make the switch over to a modern and easily available sealed bearing setup...will post pics of progress tomorrow

Maybe I should have worded it this way, I believe that the 320, 520, and the 521 use the same steering column assembly, so if the 320 steering column assembly cannot be repaired, then you could look into finding another column assembly from later models, as there are a lot more 520s/521s out there than there are 320s.
The 320/520/521 share a lot of steering parts, you can use the smaller 521 idler arm on the 320, that is a good one to use if your putting an A14/15 in your 320, as the 320 idler arm gets in the way of the "A" series oil filter.

Finally got my sealed bearings and it seems they are going to work out pretty well. Had to take the 17mm ID and machine it out to 17.85mm and they dropped right onto the shaft on either side of the worm gear. Only thing I've noticed I still need to do a little machining on is some sort of spacer/adapter to extend the lower end cap out between 3.5-4mm to compensate for the bearings being 1.75mm thicker give or take (sorry for no exact number there it's hard to measure the thickness of the old roller bearings and races but each bearing is between 1.75mm-2mm thicker then the stock ones) once I play around with milling down a spacer I'll have an exact number but it appears from what I've measured the the entire assembly is 3.5-4mm further up then it needs to be.