The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster
While dealing with the paint mess, I worked on swapping the steering shaft. I switched out the collapsed one for the original column shift one that I took out of the car 10 years ago. What I failed to realize was that since it was a column shift shaft it does not have a provision for a lock collar like the floor shift ones. More on that in a minute.
Without realizing that I had the wrong steering shaft, I went ahead and cut the bottom of it to install the u-joint coupler. That actually went OK. For some reason, I decided to put the roll pin in which was not a good idea at this juncture.
Next step was to get the lower column bearing on. Last time I did it, I used a collar bearing I got from an electric motor transmission supply place. The I.D on the bearing was a few thousandths too small so I whittled down the O.D. of the shaft to be able to slide the bearing on.
I didn't realize it 10 years ago but I mistakenly bought an eccentric bearing.
I took the old bearing and mocked it up on the replacement shaft. I slid the jacket over it to see what it fit like and the bearing got stuck in the jacket. I couldn't pry it out with my fingers so I grabbed a hole-alignment tool with a crow foot on the end to pry it out. (Like I said before, not thinking here) It was stuck in there pretty good and while prying on the back of it, the crow foot ended up killing the bearing.
It's toast. All that grinding for nothing.
I ordered a new bearing from BAC that got here in two days. Still eing lazy and impatient, I didn't want to knock the pin out and remove the coupler so I tried sliding the bearing on from the top - no dice like before. Instead of grinding down the shaft, this time I honed out the I.D. of the new bearing with my air grinder. Took a long time but I finally got it on from the top.
This one is nicer than the one I had before because it has set screws. It also has a collar that butts up against the bottom of the column jacket so no need for the OE white plastic donut.
Continued below.
While dealing with the paint mess, I worked on swapping the steering shaft. I switched out the collapsed one for the original column shift one that I took out of the car 10 years ago. What I failed to realize was that since it was a column shift shaft it does not have a provision for a lock collar like the floor shift ones. More on that in a minute.
Without realizing that I had the wrong steering shaft, I went ahead and cut the bottom of it to install the u-joint coupler. That actually went OK. For some reason, I decided to put the roll pin in which was not a good idea at this juncture.
Next step was to get the lower column bearing on. Last time I did it, I used a collar bearing I got from an electric motor transmission supply place. The I.D on the bearing was a few thousandths too small so I whittled down the O.D. of the shaft to be able to slide the bearing on.
I didn't realize it 10 years ago but I mistakenly bought an eccentric bearing.
I took the old bearing and mocked it up on the replacement shaft. I slid the jacket over it to see what it fit like and the bearing got stuck in the jacket. I couldn't pry it out with my fingers so I grabbed a hole-alignment tool with a crow foot on the end to pry it out. (Like I said before, not thinking here) It was stuck in there pretty good and while prying on the back of it, the crow foot ended up killing the bearing.
It's toast. All that grinding for nothing.
I ordered a new bearing from BAC that got here in two days. Still eing lazy and impatient, I didn't want to knock the pin out and remove the coupler so I tried sliding the bearing on from the top - no dice like before. Instead of grinding down the shaft, this time I honed out the I.D. of the new bearing with my air grinder. Took a long time but I finally got it on from the top.
This one is nicer than the one I had before because it has set screws. It also has a collar that butts up against the bottom of the column jacket so no need for the OE white plastic donut.
Continued below.