mounted upper steering shaft, now the lower shaft is too low...ugh

so I mounted my russ thompson turn signal, and figured I should just mount the steering shaft while I have it all lined up...

Attachment 143787

<- footbox | toward front of car ->

as I whacked the upper shaft into the lower one, I guess the screw didn't hold and the whole unit slid down into the upper knuckle just passed the bushing in the footwell..
assume I have to disassemble the footwell section and steering wheel mount to undo this? it took a while of strong hits with a hammer to get the shafts in the proper orientation of the upper shim just hidden away...

any other ideas before I unbuild/move/rebuild?

I don't recall needing any persuasion from a hammer to assemble any of the steering parts. That knuckle is likely going to need a puller of some sort to get it off the shaft if it doesn't slide off with the set screws removed. I would not recommend trying to pry it using the knuckle as leverage in any way. You might be able to slide the shaft into a piece of tubing that is just large enough for the shaft to fit inside, but too small for the knuckle to fit. Then just treat it like a slide hammer and see if the knuckle will pop off.

yeah I was very surprised that the upper shaft took so much effort to slide the upper with shims into the lower shaft - seriously it was 5 minutes of hammering...

I’m with Papa you should not have to use a hammer to persuade anything on the steering shaft. Hopefully you can loosen everything up top to get the shaft out of the knuckle. If it doesn’t I really like Papa’s idea with a pipe as a slide hammer.

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Originally Posted by D Stand

I’m with Papa you should not have to use a hammer to persuade anything on the steering shaft. Hopefully you can loosen everything up top to get the shaft out of the knuckle. If it doesn’t I really like Papa’s idea with a pipe as a slide hammer.

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hmm ok interesting... the upper would NOT slide easily into the lower
I'll check out tomorrow...

Thanks

Toadster - I had the same issue when assembling my upper two steering shafts together. I had hammered the upper shaft (with the spring washers) into the lower shaft - that was a mistake. They should go together with hand strength alone.

What I ended up doing to separate the two (after I got them out of the car) was using the lowest DD shaft (it will fit inside the largest hollow steering shafts) and put the largest shaft in a vise. I was then able to use the smaller shaft as a punch hitting it with a hammer (carefully) to separate the upper two shafts without any damage.

Once separated I used a file to take a little off the uppermost shaft until it slide in using hand strength alone.

Hopefully I understood your issue properly (sorry if this is completely of base).

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Originally Posted by BrewCityCobra

Toadster - I had the same issue when assembling my upper two steering shafts together. I had hammered the upper shaft (with the spring washers) into the lower shaft - that was a mistake. They should go together with hand strength alone.

What I ended up doing to separate the two (after I got them out of the car) was using the lowest DD shaft (it will fit inside the largest hollow steering shafts) and put the largest shaft in a vise. I was then able to use the smaller shaft as a punch hitting it with a hammer (carefully) to separate the upper two shafts without any damage.

Once separated I used a file to take a little off the uppermost shaft until it slide in using hand strength alone.

Hopefully I understood your issue properly (sorry if this is completely of base).

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yeah, I think I had the same issue - there was NO way they were sliding together with hand strength alone...

I figured out that I had some binding issues with the steering joints, the lower joint separated a bit from the steering gear so I mounted that tightly which freed up some room for the other joints - it's not perfect yet, but I'm going to sleep on it and figure it out tomorrow..

was really surprised how tight of a fit the upper/lower steering shafts were... it literally took a hammer to get it done

the directions say

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Turn the steering shaft so the recessed bosses for the spring washers are facing up and set the washers in
place. Then tap the upper shaft down until the upper clip just disappears into the lower shaft.

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so I figured 'tap the upper shaft' - meant use a hammer :)
if nothing else, the hammering put a lot of stress on the joints and the pins 'trying' to hold everything in place...

Todd, one other item to keep in mind... your upper steering shaft will need to be fine tuned in length once you get your dash mounted, RT turn signal bezel and steering boss set. You cant really determine how long it will be until all these are in place. Your going to want to have a small gap in between the steering boss and RT bezel so they do not touch each other when you turn the wheel. The steering shaft should slide in and out fairly easy, just make sure and leave it loose until you can set the final length.

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Originally Posted by Fman

Todd, one other item to keep in mind... your upper steering shaft will need to be fine tuned in length once you get your dash mounted, RT turn signal bezel and steering boss set. You cant really determine how long it will be until all these are in place. Your going to want to have a small gap in between the steering boss and RT bezel so they do not touch each other when you turn the wheel. The steering shaft should slide in and out fairly easy, just make sure and leave it loose until you can set the final length.

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I get that - it's not an easy move for sure though... I was trying to turn the wheel to make sure things were working, that's where I noticed the binding...

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Originally Posted by toadster

yeah I was very surprised that the upper shaft took so much effort to slide the upper with shims into the lower shaft - seriously it was 5 minutes of hammering...

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and you didn't stop to figure out WHY it wasn't going together?:confused::rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by rich grsc

and you didn't stop to figure out WHY it wasn't going together?:confused::rolleyes:

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everyone I've chatted with said you need to tap the shaft ends together... I wouldn't think that a steering shaft would be like a trombone slide

It is supposed slide easy enough to collapse in the case of an accident to prevent the steering wheel from being driven into your chest. If I loosen the set screws on the upper pillow block, I can pull mine apart with a good sharp pull on the wheel. The spring washers take up any slack in the steering. I would suggest you pull it apart and find out what went wrong.

Good Luck

Norm

mine went together w/ a few light taps of a plastic deadblow hammer. You might need to sand some of the inner shaft down to get a better clearance. listening to how hard it was to get it tapped in , you might need a slide hammer to remove it

As egchewy said, sand it down a bit with very fine sandpaper and apply a bit of machine oil to help it slide. Mine went in with just two hands pushing them together. Something is not right.

Agreed with the last two responses. I needed to take some surface oxide off w 400 or 600 grit followed by light oil, and you'll need to do that. Here's why:

• when you get it apart, you're going to want to understand specifically what is causing the interference, and to do that, you're going to want to be able to slide the inner shaft by hand (hence the fine sandpaper / light oil step).
• as you slide the two together, STOP right where it binds and see if you can figure out where the 'stick' happens on the inner shaft. If there are nicks / burrs that caused the problem, they are more likely to be on the inner shaft's surface, which is exposed when the two are apart (vs. the outer shaft, which has its mating surface protected).
• take care any nicks / burrs using a needle file (leave your big mill file in the toolbox) ... you want to only remove what is above the original surface and not mar anything else.
• of course, if the hammering gummed up something on the inner surface of the lower shaft, like a Belleville washer getting sideways and scraping things up, that's a tougher problem, maybe best solved by replacement depending on what you find.

My two cents, just trying to help :)

Good luck!

When I originally assembled the steering shafts, I tapped them together lightly as was mentioned above. When I had to disassemble them when I put in power steering, they were difficult to get apart - there was a little rust when they finally came apart. No big hammering. I just put a LARGE washer on the end with the steering wheel and tapped with a hammer to get the upper shaft out. When I reassembled, I used grease, not oil, when I put the steering shafts together.

FFR must have a different supplier for steering columns for the MK4?
I remember the days when the shafts were so sloppy, even with the belleville washers is place, builders were using shims to remove the excess play.

What Bill said. I was able to push a .011" feeler strip in between the tubes to get rid of the slop. That's with the Bellville washers.

wow yeah, zero play on this steering shaft :(