Weird Steering Issue

WOW

there are much better Experts here than me…..so forgive me of guessing here


That coupler you dismantled, is pretty much void of grease.
But there appears to be a ‘window’ present where one can force grease into the coupler.
I have never heard of such a ‘maintenance’ inspection nor procedure in any manufacturer

I’m looking at mine 100%

Any opinions out there?

 

You can actually take the whole thing apart, the last picture shows how the four bolts come apart to reveal a plastic insert and a weird wavy spacer/washer. They come out and you can grease everything that way. The u-joints on either side of mine worked freely but the metal ball was binding up pretty bad. I marked two locations on the pieces so they went back together the same, may not be needed but I wasn't sure.

There is a small channel through the plastic piece made by a metal sleeve that contains a spring. The spring keeps tension on the metal balls (one on either side of the joint) as the joint spins moving in and out with the rotation. The spring was rusted onto the sleeve and everything in general lacked grease.

I should have taken better pictures of it disassembled but wasn't thinking.

I'm guessing the joint is considered to be non-serviceable as I likewise haven't seen anything on it before. Despite that it was super easy to service once it was out. My partner has a second gen and they seem to have a common issue where this intermediate shaft is in the engine bay and goes bad. She replaced hers last fall. If this doesn't fix my problem I'm certain I will notice some sort of improvement.

 

I just made my own seal from a flexible plastic jar lid....

there was no way in hell I was gonna pay for that oem part....

 

The one through the firewall? Only cost me about $35 CAD so I'm not too bothered. Replacing the rack and it not being the issue however.... That sucked....

 

Very interesting
I totally was thinking ‘nonsevicable’ but didn’t want to state as guessing

glad your rebuilding the coupler
Kudos

 

Totally makes sense now though. Odd that it was really only one direction, you would think it would have been both ways.

 

Thanks!

 

I agree, I'm surprised it was only binding the one way. Likely was much tougher to steer than it needed to be in general though. Will find out later this week when everything is back together.

It may also be the way the two piece joint is constructed, it's pushed closer to the firewall when turning one way and not the other.

 

like many problems/accidents....a combination of 2 or more issues
(no grease and tht perished rubber seal)

 

Congrats on figuring it out and getting this fixed.

 

It did it! Put everything back together and there's no rubbing or binding going on through the whole turn cycle. Tried it in place since I'm using the down time to work on a few other overdue items. Once everything is back together later in the week I'll take it on a thorough test drive.

 

Thanks!

 

Tell use about that seal pressing!
PITA?

 

Super easy with the intermediate shaft removed. Could push it in mostly by hand and then a piece of 2x4 and a rubber mallet did the rest.