Steering Column Bush - UKC2322

[Chris Turner]

At the weekend I bought one of the machined brass bushes from Hamilton Classics, will be trying it soon.
I think the ball joints may be the cause of Johns problem.

www.triumphtrs.co.uk
THE Coca Cola car
The C+C Conversions rally car JDG 941V
TR7 Sprint SJW 530S on the road for the 1st time since 1984
TR7 Sprint SJW 539S

[john 215]

Hi,

There was a gent on here, sorry cant recall who, made a great looking bearing set up for the bulk head bush.

Cheers John


LIVE LIFE A QUARTER OF A MILE AT A TIME!

1976 Speke FHC Beauty Now with an overdrive conversion

1979 3.5 FHC(STATUS PENDING!!)

1982 2.0 DHC NOW A 4.6, BUILT NOT BROUGHT !!!!

[Chris Turner]

The brass bush takes away any of the alignment problems in the bulkhead, really well made product.

www.triumphtrs.co.uk
THE Coca Cola car
The C+C Conversions rally car JDG 941V
TR7 Sprint SJW 530S on the road for the 1st time since 1984
TR7 Sprint SJW 539S

[Paul_TR8]

I have said to John that we can measure the friction/Torque levels in his steering system just before the 40th Anniversary run to find out the problem, I will also measure the Inca yellow car (ex Roy H) as the steering is perfect and use the information as a benchmark, it will be a good experiment and I will post the article from the measurements.

In case anyone is wondering I work at MIRA Ltd as a vehicle dynamics engineer so this testing is general run of the mill stuff where we look at the levels of torque require for each component. So we measure the whole system then disconnect individual parts to find there contribution to the effort felt by the driver at the steering wheel. You could do this by feel as a guide.

Paul

[John Clancy]

Can you sort out the perpetual TR7 wheel wobble too Paul?

If so, mine's second in the queue[:)].

<center><b>[url="http://www.triumphdvd.co.uk"]Triumph TR7 and other car documentaries on DVD here[/url]</b></center>

[John Wood]

I have accepted Paul's offer and it will be a great start to the weekend. I want to use the Sprint as it's a Speke car and that's where it all started. Pressures on Paul[:D]

TR7 Sprint & TR8

[Hasbeen]

You may have read my story John of my buying an oncar balancer, & a 10 KVA gen set to drive it.

With that it is quite easy to get rid of that wobble, if a little expensive.

Of course I would have continued getting my wheels on car balanced, by the tyre shops if they had not all stopped offering the service.

At least one of them was prepared to sell me his aging but still good balancer for about 15% of the new price, & I really did need that gen set anyway. Well that's the story I told my lady.

Hasbeen

[laney]

One of my cars over about 6 mths went really stiff in the steering dept. Tried everything, Changed the bottom ball joints. Steering light again ( well sort of ) It seems you can't buy £10.00 a side ball joints.[:)]

[dursleyman]

I have seen quite a bit about the problems of replacing the steering column bush in the bulkhead/firewall over the years and it was finally time to do mine today. Taking it apart was pretty easy and I even referred to the BL workshop manual to see if there was anything I missed.
First. In the manual instructions for taking the column out is says to take note of the positions of the two washers at the lower end and the first thing I noticed was there were no washers at all on mine. Luckily I had kept the column from the car I recently scrapped so I was able to use those.
Second. The trick of heating the new poly bush in boiling water seemed to make no difference at all to its hardness.

After about 15-20 minutes of struggling I decided that there must be a better way. Most grommets can be done with a screwdriver blade and I had tried various ways of pushing and fiddling with it and almost had a couple of accidents. Then I tried to push with the end of a piece of wood but it kept slipping so I came up with this "Special Tool No.2"



I used a piece of wood about 6-7" long and just shaped the end as shown to hold the bush. The washer gives it a smooth surface and is the one that fits on the column afterwards. With the bush on the end I was then able to use another piece of wood to lever against the right side engine mounting bracket and the bush popped in. This will obviously only work on a RHD car so sorry to all you guys in the USA, you will have to find another way.



Now I have driven the car afterwards it is so much nicer with no vibration or rattles through the steering,
Just wish I had done this job sooner !!

[busheytrader]

Thanks for the article Russ as I have mine to sort out in the coming weeks. I don't know if I have the same room under the bonnet to create some leverage though.

Adam

[john 215]

Hi,

Good solution, necessity is the mother of invention as they say !

Think you will struggle mate, the honourable gentlemen Jclay and myself use the same method, put a small neat cut on the inner flange part of the bush and with a little lube simply wind it into the bulkhead -

http://www.jclay.me/jclay/Lower_Steering_Bush.html


Cheers John

[jeffremj]

Jclay and myself use the same method, put a small neat cut on the inner flange part of the bush and with a little lube simply wind it into the bulkhead

I recently replaced my bulkhead bush. I had an original item and it had a cut already - this is the designed way of installing the bush!! It took 5 seconds to fit!

[FI Spyder]

Made the cut to twist it in but took me longer than 5 seconds. It was winter time and any heating in a tub of hot water was quickly negated but got it eventually.

[dursleyman]

I did try the cut and screw method guys as you can see from the finished photo, and all the other heating tricks but none of them worked for me, that why the tool got "invented".

[FI Spyder]

I did try the cut and screw method guys as you can see from the finished photo, and all the other heating tricks but none of them worked for me, that why the tool got "invented".

I didn't say it was easy.

I wonder how the special tool would have worked without a part of the smaller flange missing?