Manual steering gear- how long do they last?

[C10wip]

Follow up post - I put the new steering gear in and it feels like an improvement. A couple of items to pass along from this experience:

1. The pitman arm nut is 33mm, at least on the manual steering gear. I had 32 and 36mm sockets... ..and now a 33mm. Apparently this is also an axle nut size on some GMs, so maybe I'll get more than one use out of it. $14 at AutoZone. The nearest SAE size is 1 5/16", no idea if that would work but I would guess so.

2. The Unit Repair Manual shows the pitman arm nut torque as 185 ft-lbs. Haynes lists it as 140. The difference is about 1/8th of a turn.
The power and manual boxes are different by 10 ft lbs.

3. Wear those safety glasses! Apart from stopping all of the dirt from falling in your eyes, they could also save you some grief if you drop this thing and happen to be looking up. It is not tremendously heavy, but it could definitely ruin your day.