When my steering box (from PSC) was installed, everything seemed to be ok except that I noticed the long bolts that go in from the side were switched. The 5.5" bolt was installed in the rear position and the 5" bolt in the front position, the opposite of how they go. So the other night I decided to take them out and put them back in the right way. The one from the front position came out ok but I heard a snap sound as it was coming out, strange but I didn't worry about it. The one from the rear position came out with about 1.5" of the thread closer to the tip all messed up so I couldn't use it in the front position any more. I decided to cut off the damaged part and put the bolts back in as they were until I could get some new ones. When putting them back in, BOTH of them seemed to stripped. That was really strange. Yesterday I got a new 5.5" bolt to put in the front position. When I took out the old bolt, it came out with a broken helicoil insert (Why is PSC selling something like this?). The other half of the helicoil was still in the threads so I put in the bolt and was able to torque it normally. The rear bolt is in there with just a few threads holding it in and it seems to be stripped (at least those first few threads). It seems that the first half of the threads was ok (first few threads might be stripped now) and the second half was deformed, maybe a burr or an out of place helicoil.
I run a steering box brace and three mounting bolts should work (as in a TJ) so it seems it would be ok to leave it as it is. But as usual, it just bugs me to live with defective installations. What would you do? Just leave it alone, take out the box and try to fix the threads, get another steering box?
