1955 Power Steering control valve and ball stud

[karlhc]

For those of you struggling with working on removing the control valve. First, it is messy. Second, for getting the ball stud out of the steering arm, I found the Auto Zone rental tool 57276 works well. A little tight, but it does work (I only filed on it a little bit to make it fit).
When I reinstalled the control valve and ball stud, I followed the procedure with the 9-1/2" distance, filled everything up with fluid and proceeded to check that the steering was centered. It was a bit off in that turning right was much easier than turning left and when driving, the car tended to pull a bit to the left.
Anyway, I removed the control valve cap and proceeded to adjust the nut. First I tightened it "snug" then backed off a quarter turn. No luck, and I was not sure which way to go - tighten or loosen, so I loosened it a bit. It got worse, so i tightened it back and then tightened another 1/8 turn to see if that helped. Then I turned the steering wheel right and left and when going right again, at full right the center part of the control valve pushed itself out far enough to expose the seal and pressurized power steering fluid went everywhere. What a mess!!!
Reassembling the seal back in the cylinder did not work, it leaked a little so I am ordering a rebuild kit. What I found though was when adjusting the control valve, either reinstall the cap or get two small 1/4-20 Allen head screws to keep the spool from traveling too far (hex head catches on one of the washers). This will keep everything together so you do not have to remove and reinstall the cap every time you check for proper centering.