09-01-2023, 10:49 AM
Thanks for this thread and some outside counsel, I have had my steering column out, replaced the lower end bearing and I also pulled the intermediate shaft and replaced the u-joints.
Most of it went to plan except getting the bearing out of the bottom of the column. The blue plastic sleeve on mine did not want to budge. Tried carefully tapping it out with a hammer and screwdriver, but alas a big chunk ultimately broke off. At that point I was at the point of no return and I was able to tap more aggressively and it finally budged and slid out.
Well what to do now? So I thought we’ll maybe I can get a larger bearing that would just press directly into the metal housing, and I would not need tha plastic sleeve. So I went on McMaster to see what was available, basically nothing larger than 2” and I needed 2.25” OD. So then it occurred to me, maybe I can just turn the plastic sleeve around, so I checked and the bearing had a good fit on the other side. So I trimmed off the remnants of the plastic shoulder and drove the plastic sleeve back in reversed and then was able to tap the bearing in. Worked out quite well. Actually something came up while I was telling my buddy this story and he said can you put another bearing in there, and he said “I would put two in there”. So I went ahead and ordered another bearing and I am going to go way overkill and put two bearings on the bottom of the column.
I also noticed that there was no boot or seal to keep the conditioned air from going out around the steering shaft through the floor. So I made a boot out of some scrap vinyl I had laying around. It has Velcro on it so you can remove it without having to remove the column or intermediate shaft.
I also made a lower column support. I ended up finding a stainless steel u-bolt clamp at work in our warehouse so I used that with some rod couplings and a couple of short sections of all thread bolted back to the column support steel.
I am hopefully going to have a video of some of this work at some point.
Thought I had a photo of the new bearing install but somehow I missed getting one. I will get one when I add the additional bearing.
Here are some photos:
Most of it went to plan except getting the bearing out of the bottom of the column. The blue plastic sleeve on mine did not want to budge. Tried carefully tapping it out with a hammer and screwdriver, but alas a big chunk ultimately broke off. At that point I was at the point of no return and I was able to tap more aggressively and it finally budged and slid out.
Well what to do now? So I thought we’ll maybe I can get a larger bearing that would just press directly into the metal housing, and I would not need tha plastic sleeve. So I went on McMaster to see what was available, basically nothing larger than 2” and I needed 2.25” OD. So then it occurred to me, maybe I can just turn the plastic sleeve around, so I checked and the bearing had a good fit on the other side. So I trimmed off the remnants of the plastic shoulder and drove the plastic sleeve back in reversed and then was able to tap the bearing in. Worked out quite well. Actually something came up while I was telling my buddy this story and he said can you put another bearing in there, and he said “I would put two in there”. So I went ahead and ordered another bearing and I am going to go way overkill and put two bearings on the bottom of the column.
I also noticed that there was no boot or seal to keep the conditioned air from going out around the steering shaft through the floor. So I made a boot out of some scrap vinyl I had laying around. It has Velcro on it so you can remove it without having to remove the column or intermediate shaft.
I also made a lower column support. I ended up finding a stainless steel u-bolt clamp at work in our warehouse so I used that with some rod couplings and a couple of short sections of all thread bolted back to the column support steel.
I am hopefully going to have a video of some of this work at some point.
Thought I had a photo of the new bearing install but somehow I missed getting one. I will get one when I add the additional bearing.
Here are some photos:
Jeff LoGiudice
Temple Terrace, Fl
1984 Bluebird Wanderlodge PT40
1998 Newell 2000 #490
1986 MCI/TMC 102A3 (sold)