As its been soooo long since i stripped the donor car i can no longer remember or find the fasteners for the Sierra steering column. The photo below shows the bit i'm talking about. Does anyone have a photo or able to describe what the bolts/bushes look like please?

[img]
Column Mount [/img]

Finally last night i got around to making the footwell bulkhead and steering shaft support bearing only to find that once fully welded my steering shaft is now 15mm too long!


[img]
Bearing Support [/img]

Whats the best course of action to rectify?

1. Change the bearing position - this would be a real pain to do and look untidy i think.

2. Shorten the shaft using a cut sleeve and weld method

3. Shorten the shaft at the UJ. The shaft is 'peened' into the UJ which i dont really like so i am considering knocking this out, shortening the shaft and then welding the joint. I may add some weld spots to the other end too as it is alos 'peened' in position.

Any advice?

Oh, one more thing, should the transmission tunnel have a section of steel plate in the foot area or is it normal to skin the complete tunnel with ally sheet?
Cheers
Dan

Regarding the first one, on the Dax it's just M12 bolts and big washers, no bushes. The manual states that you can use the play resulting from the oversized holes on the ford bracket for fine adjustment.
Though I have wondered about making up some bushings, I guess they're not needed.

As far as the tranny tunnel goes, mines all ally and so are a number of others, I've never heard of a requirement to use steel.

I turned up top-hat spacers.

You will need to leave more of a gap between uj and the bulkhead. There is no room for the column to compress. Iva fail.

I would cut and sleave the down link.

[Edited on 10/5/11 by big_wasa]

As big-wasa says I'd want the shaft shortening by at least 75 to 100mm to allow for the rack coming towards you in event of a shunt, the idea is that the trangular shaft slides up the main steering column, It's not uncommon for people to say that the triangular piece is short when in fact the bulk of it has been for some strange reason been pushed into the column.

tony

[Edited on 10/5/11 by mad-butcher]

Thanks for the info!

So roughly how much of the shaft should be inserted into the steering column, about half or less?

The photo below shows the position with approximately 50mm inserted.


[img]
Steering Shaft 2 [/img]

Does this look like too much pulled out?

Thanks again!