Having some slight play and delayed steering return on my 70 cutlass. Also I can feel and hear a slight clunking when I turn the wheel. There is movement when I try to move the shaft.

 

Where is the movement, top near the column, or bottom near the gear box. Check your rag joint(connection to the steering box)

 

Slight play here. Also all other steering components have been replaced at some point.

 

Is your steering column in the locked position??....and locked?? Or is it unlocked??

You appear to be pointing at the upper part of the int. steering shaft. Be clear....your pic just shows you pointing to some part of the steering shaft. Where is the play?? IE- BETWEEN WHAT PARTS?? What moves and what doesn't?

There is a greased "ujoint"/swiveling parts INSIDE the "upper bell" part of the int. steering shaft (inside the bell where the rubber seal/boot is....just to the RIGHT of your finger in the pic). These usually don't wear out as the grease inside is well retained. But who knows??

Again, go back to my questions above and be more specific.

 

Ok. With the steering in the locked or unlocked position there is a side to side movement where I am pointing which is at the boot. . The rag joint seems to be tight. It’s not major play but I’m not sure if this is normal. Thanks

 

Pics below show the "u-joint"/swivel setup inside the upper bell part.

There is a rocking motion that is part of the design...ie - the upper bell can rock back and forth relative to the shaft but only a limited amount and once installed on the column and attached at the rag joint I don't think you can make it rock back in forth using hand force/muscle. Just tried it on one of my '70 cars (int shaft installed in car)....and no obvious movement.

Are you saying that the shaft portion can move while the upper bell doesn't move at all?

First pic shows the various "u-joint"/swivel parts and the upper end of the shaft.

Second pic shows how they fit onto the pin on the shaft....NOTE: All these parts are heavily greased prior to the upper bell being installed onto the "u-joint"/swivel parts...and the bell itself gets some grease put inside of it as well.

 

Yes. The shaft portion moves left to right by hand without the upper bell portion. I wasn’t sure if this is normal.

 

Hard to know doing this on a computer, w/pics, etc......So when you say the shaft moves "left to right" you are referring to everything being in the position as shown in YOUR pic above??

How much effort to make it move? Are you really having to yank on it or push hard to get movement....or is it relatively "light" effort to get it to move??

Another "hard to answer" question.....how much slop/movement side to side??? Just barely?? Or more "noticeable" like 1/8" to 3/8" of movement?? (I know....hard to measure but just trying to get an idea of how much "slop" you're seeing).

 

It moves with relative ease about 1/8 left to right in the position of my picture.

 

I don't think it should shift L/R that much. Perhaps someone rebuilt it previously and did not reinstall all of the parts, or installed them incorrectly. I rebuilt mine, and it does not shift L/R that much.

 

As greasy as it appears in the pics it sure looks like nobody has messed with it....then again, I could be completely wrong there.

There are only THREE loose parts on the inside of the upper bell.....the two swivel "blocks" and the formed spring metal thing....all shown in my two pics. I have taken apart int. shafts for resto/rebuild and found the spring metal thing to be broken but yours acts more like it's missing completely due to the amount of play/slop. The spring metal piece is made of very thin metal but it sits under BOTH of the swivel blocks when installed so there are TWO spots where the spring metal thing adds "width" to the block assembly.

Feeling/looking inside the upper bell piece on the shaft in the pics I posted....there is a wear pattern and slight depressions on the inside of the upper bell where the swivel blocks make contact with the inside of the upper bell. I can feel the slight depressions w/my finger so SOME metal is missing (ie - clearance was added w/the wear to the metal). But, assembled "dry" (no grease) there isn't any noticeable slop/movement in the shaft, side-to-side, like you describe. This is a loose shaft...not installed so my attempt to see if there's movement isn't a "perfect" comparison to yours since yours is in the car and mounted.

I can't tell you "Yes, go ahead and remove the int. shaft as that's where your problem is". It's some work to get the shaft off of the column (especially with everything mounted in the car) as the upper bell clamp is clamped down tight on the bell and distorted into its current "tightened" position. Also the upper bell itself is also distorted/bent where the upper bell clamp crushes against the upper bell. These two pieces DO NOT spring back and create clearance when the upper bell clamp retaining nut/bolt are loosened.

You don't want to start hammering on stuff either trying to pull the shaft off of the splined shaft of the steering column as the steering column splined shaft is a two piece collapsible design.

 

Upon further review, this morning I noticed some slight play in the rag joint. Since I already had one I replaced it. I haven’t driven it yet but the clunking is mostly gone and the wheel feels a bit tighter. I’ll post tomorrow after I drive it. Thanks again for all your input.

 

Handles like new! Thanks so much to all who responded!

 

Glad to hear of a good result.