Stu's 1972 4 Door

[Stu]

At some point my car had a master cylinder leak, brake fluid ran down the interior of the firewall, and removed the paint from the steering column flange. I wanted to clean this up, but putting the whole thing into my bead blast cabinet would not be practical and I'd never keep the grit out of the bearings and such.



I figured out that the upper and lower sections are head together with three screws that are under the collar that mounts to the underside of the dash. A soft blow mallet later and it is out of the way. Resist the urge to bang on the splined end of the shaft to get this loose. Hold the outer housing in the ridged/collapsible section and hit the wings. If you strike the end of the shaft, you can damage the bearings.



To remove the top shaft from the upper tube, you need to remove this C-clip while applying pressure on the internal spring. A large deep socket works well for this. Keep track of the washer too.





All apart (center mount is the wrong direction, whoops)



I cleaned all of the old grease out of the upper and lower ball bearings in my parts washer and then 'repacked' the bearings. The inner one used all of the length my middle finger would provide.

The lower section got bead blasted and painted.



All back together

[iceman510]

Excellent tutorial as always. I have an upper section with a quick release hex or spline adapter welded to it that I bought years ago, but hadn't figured out how to get it apart to exchange them. Now I see.

Thanks.

[Pista_510]

Thanks for the explanation....wonderful work and documentation, as usual. Really look forward to your updates, that car is going to be amazing.

[ostaylor]

Hi Stu,

Very timely of you doing this... I planned to test fit my steering column with my dash tonight and upon closer inspection, it's a mess. The outside has been cleaned up but when I turn the internals, it feels like there is sand and rocks in there. I'm hopeful that it is repairable, but a bit worried and I won't know until I get it apart. Mine does not have the C-clip as you can see in the picture below... Not sure if it is missing or different? If it is missing, how do I get the internals out? Did you push them out with the socket in the bottom?

Steering Column top.jpg (164.58 KiB) Viewed 329 times

That bearing at the top looks pretty warn... not sure if it will survive being cleaned up and regreased but I'd like to try.

[Stu]

Hi Stu,

Very timely of you doing this... I planned to test fit my steering column with my dash tonight and upon closer inspection, it's a mess. The outside has been cleaned up but when I turn the internals, it feels like there is sand and rocks in there. I'm hopeful that it is repairable, but a bit worried and I won't know until I get it apart. Mine does not have the C-clip as you can see in the picture below... Not sure if it is missing or different? If it is missing, how do I get the internals out? Did you push them out with the socket in the bottom?

That bearing at the top looks pretty warn... not sure if it will survive being cleaned up and regreased but I'd like to try.

I am guessing that at one time there was a c-clip and upper washer. If you separate the upper and lower sections, you could rubber mallet tap on the spline end you show and get it to pop through the upper bearing (penetrating goo like PB Blaster will help break up the crap). The socket is only to push up on the shaft to compress the internal spring to take the load off the c-clip during disassembly/assembly. I think that some of your bad bearing feeling is coming from the fact that both bearings are not being properly loaded by the spring/clip. I bet you'll find a c-clip groove once you get it apart. Let us know what you find.

[iceman510]

Owen, see these posts from May 8, 9 and 10, 2017 from Tedman on Ratsun (Ted Hedman) with some detail on the clip on the steering column shaft. Scroll way down the page as there are lots of pictures.

https://ratsun.net/topic/71557-zeke-72-510-2dr/page/2/

That entire thread is a great resource for anyone putting a car back together that you didn't take apart.

[ostaylor]

Owen, see these posts from May 8, 9 and 10, 2017 from Tedman on Ratsun (Ted Hedman) with some detail on the clip on the steering column shaft. Scroll way down the page as there are lots of pictures.

https://ratsun.net/topic/71557-zeke-72-510-2dr/page/2/

That entire thread is a great resource for anyone putting a car back together that you didn't take apart.

Wow - thank you, that is an amazing find... I'm sure I would have gone through all the same issues and possibly have thought I needed to replace my column as well. Thanks for finding it and sharing it. I will add that thread to a few on here that I plan to scroll through completely over the next few weeks to give me ideas and forewarn me of more of the issues I am likely to face.

[Stu]

While I was cleaning the steering column, the turn signal/combination switch was pretty crusty too, so I took it all apart for cleaning and painting.

Starting point:



I took tons of pictures of all of the screws and such, and won't bore you with all of them, just some of them:









Remove the thin snap ring to remove the rotating portion from the main housing.



Be careful with the detent ball and the two springs, or they pop out and shoot across the shop and you spend wayyyyyy too much time looking for them



When you go to take the canceling cam mechanism out, you have to grind off the back/ends of the screws because they have been peened so they can't back out. They still got a bit buggered taking them out, so I ended up replacing them (M3 screws) and using a bit of loctite rather than peening again. I did not take the canceling mechanism apart, just soaked and cleaned.









The arm was super crusty and rusty. After bagging the 'rotating end' and protecting the high beam switch, I bead blasted the arm and the rubber tip. I was surprised how much the rubber end cleaned up with a light blasting. Masked off the rubber tip, a coat of satin black, and good as new.



All of the greasy parts soaked in parts cleaner overnight and spray contact cleaner for all of the electrical bits. Loctite on new screws to hold the canceling cam mechanism.



White lithium grease (tube) on all of the rotating parts before putting the snap ring back on, Spray lithium on the cancel mechanism and dielectric grease on the contacts. Refer to all of the disassembly pictures and remount all of the wiring.

[iceman510]

Very nice.

[disiztheend]

I wanted to make sure I had the overflow tube and vapor lines hooked up in the stock config so a fuel pump auto cut-off will work well and the car won't smell like fuel all the time. To adapt the vapor line, I used a Murray 84520 5/8 x 5/8 x 1/4 tee in the overflow line.

I'll eventually connect the vapor line that goes up to the engine compartment once I run the fuel lines.

Hello,
You made an amazing job on your car ! Tank you for sharing it !

I have a question concerning fuel lines. Could you tell me the inner diameter ? 5/8 ? Everywhere ?

Did you replace the heater unit and master vac pipings too ?

[Stu]

Hello,
You made an amazing job on your car ! Tank you for sharing it !

I have a question concerning fuel lines. Could you tell me the inner diameter ? 5/8 ? Everywhere ?

Did you replace the heater unit and master vac pipings too ?

Thanks for the complement. Here are the line sizes:

small vent lines (from vapor tank to front of car, tank to overflow line, and vapor tank to fuel tank): 1/4"
line from the overflow on the filler to the tank: 5/8"
fuel lines from pump to engine compartment: 5/16"
heater lines: 3/4" (already on the SR20 engine)

I have not done any of the vacuum lines yet.

[disiztheend]

Thanks for the complement. Here are the line sizes:

small vent lines (from vapor tank to front of car, tank to overflow line, and vapor tank to fuel tank): 1/4"
line from the overflow on the filler to the tank: 5/8"
fuel lines from pump to engine compartment: 5/16"
heater lines: 3/4" (already on the SR20 engine)

I have not done any of the vacuum lines yet.

Thank you !
Are all these sizes relevant for a stock L16 engine ?

[Stu]

I'm not sure on the fuel lines for stock. I think they are 3/8". Also not sure on the heater hoses, it has been tooooo long since the stock motor has been around.

[Stu]

My car did not come with any sun visors and while many people take them out because they are thrashed or have installed a panel mirror, a highway I drive often is perfectly east-west, so sun visors are a must for me. I bought a used set years ago and thought I'd be able to clean them up and use some SEM paint to match the headliner. The more I looked at them and tried to clean them, the less happy I was with them. Got in touch with my local upholstery shop and they rebuilt them with a new paper hardboard and black soft vinyl.

old covers were pretty stained



the most nerve wracking part was finding the mounting holes and using a soldering iron to melt the headliner to make clean holes



I tried painting the stock end clips and the paint just kept flaking off. Decided to just buy a set of black anodized clips from Machined Speed. They are super nice and fit perfectly. It was also nerve wracking trying to find the tiny mounting holes before I went at a brand new headliner with a soldering iron.





Getting the screws lined up while craning your neck is a challenge and when I was tightening one of the screws, I got a bit torque happy and split the LH base.



Thanks to TJ (Yenpit) I got a replacement base, cleaned and painted the bases so everything matched



I was much more careful on reinstall this time with how tight I got the screws

[iceman510]

Those visor look fantastic. I need to find a good upholsterer near me.

Agree with the trepidation of putting holes in the new Headliner. I put that off for a while last summer.