How many are there supposed to be? I tried turning the worm gear to the right and it seemed to be tight, which according to the article I was following, was as it should be. I sprayed some brake cleaner inside to clean out the fluid and poured it out over an oil catch can and the worm gear dumped out along with all the ball bearings. I count 22, how many need to go back in :D

22 is a good number. Make sure to alternate them black/grey as they go back in.


Most had 22 balls, some as many as 24 according to my research.

i may be giving up and having it rebuilt, getting a rebuilt unit and tapping it while being more careful, or getting a spare from a friend that's already been tapped. At one point I think I found a 23rd ballI ended up with 20 before I called it a night. Tried getting the cap on the front of the box off to hopefully get access to the pit of darkness that seems to have eaten my balls. While searching here I found out about the hole I need to look for the get a punch in. I'll give putting it back together another shot tomorrow but don't want to waste too much time on it, gotta get the buggy rolling!

once you get the end cap snap ring off, turn the steering shaft to pop the end cap off. Find all the balls, and use bearing greese in the sheet metal tube to hold the balls in place while reassembling the box.

These boxes have to be torn down in the correct order, and reassembeled in the correct order! Arbitrary disassembely is NOT your friend here.

For anybody searching that happens to come across this post, the spot you're looking for on the box to get the snap ring off the cap is actually a hole going through the side of the casting. I was looking for a notch inside the lip and punched the ring all the way around looking for a space to try and fit a pick into to pry the ring out with....once I did the full 360 I found the hole in the side, stuck a punch in it and promptly had the ring out. Then I grabbed the worm gear to stick in so I could put the input assy in and trn it to pop the cap off, reached for a rag which just happened to be the rag that had all the ball bearings wrapped up inside. I was greeted with a wonderful shower of ball bearings all over my filthy shop floor. I could only recover 16 or 17...so I've given up. No point in wasting more time on it. I'll borrow a ported box from a friend or if we can't meetup before, I'll pick up another box from my friends Jeep yard and port that. Maybe I'll tear it all apart and snap some pics so people have an idea of what's inside should they make the same moronic mistake that I did :D

That hole sucks. It fills up with grime over the years, and if you don't have prior knowledge that it's there, you'd never find it.

Sorry to hear you treat your balls with such wreckless abandon :flipoff2:

o3 and up TJ have 24 if i recall correctly. must use grease to load.