Just a minor safety check for you all.

I serviced my '66 Starfire Tilt & Tele column last night: new lower column bearing, installed a better lower column bearing spacer, cleaned & greased everything else per my instructions here on ClassicOlds.

It took 8 hours or so with pulling the column and cleaning and regreasing all the little parts. Just so you know what the time investment is.

So I thought, well the column is right. Since it's out of the car, why not replace the rag joint to make steering as good as it can be?

I just had a new idler arm and a few other steering parts installed, so a fresh rag joint seemed sensible.

I headed over to my local (very good) Napa auto parts store and sourced a couple of rag joints - one Chevy part and one Ford part. They were basically the same dimensions but the Chevy part had a GM flat spot (aka D shape) among the splines and the Ford part didn't. Since no one had '66 Olds big car parts in stock, I figured I could use parts from several sources to make something solid & reliable. That turned out to be true.

The big story here is that my splined coupler that attaches to the steering box (not the steering column splined coupler) was, uh, used. Abused is a better word.

It still worked fine, but geez, look at the missing splines here:

Previous Owner Syndrome, or a terrible mechanic: "All we have to do to make it fit is grind off some splines!" Dumbsh*t.

Here's a view from the other side. I drove at least 50,000 or 100,000 miles on this... Yikes.

Oh hell - just grind off all the splines and torque it to 100 ft-lbs!. It'll be fine!

What's scary to me is I've had this car since 1997 and this is the first time I've ever seen this safety threat.

Beyond my outrage/fear, job well done to GM engineers from the 1960's whose products work just fine even after this kind of abuse. I only wish devices today ere built this well. The fact that this worked just fine with _half_ its splines gone is a testatment to quality from all those years ago. Great job guys!

Guess I'll be checking my '66 98 very soon too. Anyway next time you pull your steering column, have a good hard look at the splined joints.

FYI - a Dremel with a wire wheel cleans ancient splines very nicely. Shoot 'em with a spot of oil after and things slip together as though it were 1966 all over again.

Cheers
cf

 

Wow that is amazing. Did the Ford or Chevy part work? Your shaft was ok? Indeed, why would someone grind that off, or was it from rocking back and forth??? Keep us posted as you continue, Chris.

 

The Ford part has usable pieces, but the flange that connects to the steering box does not have the flat spot or “D” shape that GM used. So the rubber ring may work, the bolts may work, but the flange is just plain wrong. Unless you grind it, and well, I know i don’t want to recreate that problem.

So I used the Chevy part. That coupler came not with the Olds Big & Little posts, but with 2 big posts - call them large diameter. I can report that the 2 large posts fit the Olds column flange voids. The only minor hitch is that the Chevy part had 1 bolt exactly like the olds with a 1/2” head, but it also had one larger one that needed a 9/16’s head. I had to drill out one side of my Olds column flange to 7/16’s diameter to accommodate the larger bolt.

Since drilling the bolt hole out has the potential to weaken the column flange, I checked the amount of metal between the larger hole and the edge of the flange. It was just about as large as the amount of metal on the original or “factory” side. Beyond that, I’m happy that the larger pins fit well in the Olds column flange. If the flange ever broke or cracked, those larger pins will move a lot less than the big & little pins Olds used.

For anyone following along, the torque spec for the splined joint bolts (12 point 7/16’s) is 35 ft-lbs. Those are the bolts aiming right and left, or toward the engine/fender, if you like.

The torque spec for the flange bolts at least for 1966 is 15-20 ft-lbs. These are the ones oriented fore/aft, or front/rear if you like, that go through the rubber ring securing the column to the steering box through the flexible joint. They are a typical nut/bolt combination, but with a lock washer in between to resist loosening from suspension vibration.

I test drove the car today to get the steering wheel clocked right and it steers very well. It’s not dramatic, but it definitely feels tighter than before.