Stiff stearing tube on BF75A

"My steering is stiff, I disco

"My steering is stiff, I disconnect the pivot arm and the wheel turns freely, it is tight in the vertical pivot tube. There is 1 zerk fitting at the bottom of the tube, there is not one at top. When I pump it up with greese it comes out at the bottom of the tube but not at the top, when the motor was new, grease would come out top and bottom. Clearly I am not getting lube up at the top of the tube. I wrapped the bottom part of the pivot tube where the brackets join with gasket material and a large hose clamp to seal the bottom part of the tube, I heated the tube for a couple of hours to soften the grease. Then pumped it up with a grease gun, it takes grease for bit then eventually spews a leak and begins spewing grease from around the hose clamp. I've been told that to disassemble the mounting bracket completely including the pivot tube, you have to take the motor apart. I was wondering if anyone could post an exploded view of this bracket and perhaps advise me on how to deal with this. Thanks for any help"

"Something I would try before

"Something I would try before disassembly would be to spray some solvent like PB BLASTER around the top of the tube and let it "wick" down. That stuff is really good at creeping through corrosion. Patience would be a virtue here as only a small quantity will be able to penetrate at a time and it might require several small applications and several days waiting. Work the pivot back and forth at each session. The fact that it moves at all means that there is some clearance in there and you are probably working with a combination of corrosion and old, hardened grease deposits both of which the PB Blaster should help dissolve. You don't say how you are heating the tube but a judicious amount of torch heat applied in conjunction with the penetrant should help loosen things up. Good luck"

"Agree with Jimmy on that one.

"Agree with Jimmy on that one. PB Blaster works wonders. Give it time, and work the steering back and forth a lot with each application."

"ok, I'll give it a try. I

"ok, I'll give it a try. I set an electric heater up close to the engine and let it warm the area, then I heated the tube with a propane tourch, both sides. Then tried pumping grease into it, it didn't dislodge up top. I wonder if I could add a grease fitting higher up on the tube, I would need to know where there is a hollow area. Got a drawing of the tube assembly? Thanks"