Steering Box

Good evening all. So I finished rebuilding my steering box this weekend and doing so has raised two points....

Am I right in thinking that there is nothing stopping oil pi55ing out of the unit past the upper bearing (admittedly it should never be able to do this because gravity will always be on your side, hopefully)?

This seems like a very likely area where dirt will be able to get in to the unit, even with the outer column protecting it to some extent. I think I'm going to cut a cylindrical piece of foam and insert it in to the bottom of the outer column to act in some way as a barrier against crud getting in.

My second point was that I had a new upper column bearing to fit (the one that sits in the outer column near back of the steering wheel. There is no way this thing was going in, the fit was ridiculously tight both into the outer column and then between the inner column and the bearing id. As such I'm going to turn up a solid bronze bearing to fit in place of the ball bearing and I was wondering if anyone had either done this before or had any thoughts on the idea.

Cheers. Olly

Buy a new upper bearing from Blanchards they fit. Loads of poor quality ones on the market.
There was some after market steering columns made which where not exact.

Yes crap can fall down the coulmn into the box, I think most of my upper bearing ended up down there. The upper bearings are a bit hit and miss. If you replaced the steering column then it will be a britpart item as i believe they are the only source now and I found that an original upper bearing wont fit on the column. I spent ages adjusting the column with a file so the bearing would fit.