Been focusing on tightening up my front end - all new ball joints and tie rods. But I can't really enjoy them because there's so much slop in my steering wheel.

The little u-joint in the shaft is nice and tight - but the "rag" connector - the coupler with the rubber disk attached to the steering box is junk. Lots of slop there.

I know I can buy just the disk, but I'm going to pay 40 bucks more and just buy a whole new coupler.

Haven't found much info on how much of a job it is to swap this out. Reading that I have to loosen the entire steering column to make room to remove it... that doesn't sound right to me though.

Anybody swapped one of these out before? I see one clamp side, and one splined hole - is that a loose fit, or is it pressed on?

Would just like to know what to expect before operating.

 

You can remove the lower intermediate shaft by removing the pinch
bolt at the steering gear. You may need to open the pinch bolt with
a wedge a little bit. It will then slide off the steering gear.

If you remove the thru bolt at the top of the upper intermediate
shaft you can pull both shafts.

The intermediate shaft is two pieces. The lower shaft slides inside
the upper shaft. If you look at the shaft it has a rubber bushing that
hides the slip joint. There is a plastic sleeve that seperates the shafts.
If you seperate the two shafts you need to make sure that plastic
sleeve isn't pushed back up into the upper shaft. That will create
a lot of slop between the two shafts if that happens.



Red Arrow points to the rubber bushing.

 

Great - really appreciate the info.

thanks