Final steering Info. (archive)

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I'm a little short of time at the moment again, but I will attempt to be clear with the main and important points of the under dash steering criteria. First of all I cannot express enough the importance of finding an "Honest, Knowledgable, and Experienced mechanic that you can talk to easily!!!" I know, usually that is referred to as "The Impossible Dream"!

Most of you 850 or E31 owner/drivers do not work on your cars and therefore most of what is said on this board about mechanics is greek. For that reason and to make it simple for those of us who do enjoy the grease of wrenching this job has turned out to be simple, as with most highly touted complex mechanical scenarios.

Steering linkeage under the Dash:
- The one most important factor of the steering under the Dash is the adjustment of the big Nut surrounding your lower steering shaft just before it disappears through your inner-firewall into the engine compartment. This big nut is referred to as a compression nut. This big nut, if improperly made too tight will stop the necessary sliding movement back and forth (in and out)(yes like sex) that is required to occur when you activate your electric steering wheel adjustment closer or father away from you or the dash. If someone, (you or mechanic) tighten this nut to the point that stops the in and out sliding of the splined shaft, you will effectively cause tremendous pressure and distortion to occur to the Rubber (dampner)Coupling that is located further up the shaft toward you and the wheel from the Nut and this Rubber Coupling will then begin a very rapid deterioration forcing it's retaining nuts to embed themselves into the rubber and then effectively cause a rip in the Rubber Coupling that will cause total loss of your steering. This process takes anywhere from a week to a month or two depending upon how often you drive the car and how curvy your road. The more you turn the more you lose.
- When the lower Nut is tightened so that the splined shaft cannot go in and out with movement of the electric column control, then the Rubber coupling is forced to stretch beyond it's limitations, especially if it's adjusted tight in the down (close to the dash) position and then the control is activated to bring the wheel closer to the driver. In that case the distortion becomes immense and intolerable to the Rubber coupling.
- Should one ever desire to check this out, you can easily remove the under the dash trim pieces and take a look. This shaft and all it's components are easy to remove and replace as long as the big nut is able to be loosened. In most cases this is no problem. If it cannot be loosened then you must remove it from the car and put it in a vice and make it loose! (rare case, but this is what I just had to do. Someone had tightened mine so tight it would barely come loose only after a heat torch made it very hot!! I will always wonder who did this and why??? It did just come out of the dealers shop 3 weeks earlier for steering column work, what can I say!)
- Anyway, if the Nut will come loose usually by putting a big wrench on it and turning with someone else helping you turn the steering wheel in the opposite direction. After the Nut is loose you would then remove the four retaining nuts, two on either side of the Rubber Coupling that is located between the Flange (two mounting bolts)and the upper end of the lower steering shaft (the other two mounting bolts)and then you loosen the nut enough so that the main shaft with nut can be pushed inward toward the engine to create enough room to take apart and take out the old Rubber Coupling and insert the new one.
- The Rubber Coupling does not come with the Nuts and the Wavy (spring) washers that are necessary to do the job properly. You should use new ones of stainless steel strength, The wavy washers must be a size almost exactly 8mm ID.(inside diameter) X 15mm OD.(outside diameter) Both sizes are critical. The ID. must be 8mm to allow the bolt to pass through and the OD. must be no bigger as then it will begin to impede the proper movement of your required steering when turning. It is imperitive that the Rubber Coupling (with steel cylinders positioned inside each hole at the factory) is placed in the mounting bolts slowly and carefully making sure that they are gently urged a little at a time onto each bolt a little at a time until the Rubber Coupling has fully inserted all four bolts all the way into all holes before attaching any washers and nuts.
- At this point you will want to attach the Washer first over the mounting bolt sticking through the Rubber Coupling and then the Nut making it only finger tight. You will only be able to do one bolt at a time, that bolt which you can see which will be the closest nut to you, and then you will want to activate the power steering for a few moments to easily turn the wheel to the next nut to begin putting on the washer first, then the nut, then finger tightening and so on till they are all tightened only by fingers. Then once finger tightened you will want to wrench (13mm) tighten each one to a torque speck of 16 to 20 lbs. That means using your hands with the 13mmwrench to make them very tight, but no where near your maximum hand tightening power which could be 50 to 75lb torque thats not necessary! you just want good and normal tight! . You will use the same method of turning the wheel via power steering from nut to nut.
- Then once the coupling is properly attached and retained by wavy washers and self-locking nuts properly tightened, Then you will want to activate your electric steering column control and watch the column go in and out and see if the shaft down just below the nut (passing through the fire-wall into the eng compartment)is sliding in and out of the big nut (yes, like sex). If it is not sliding then the nut is too tight. If it is sliding then you need to adjust it. The best method I have found to use is to simply have a big wrench of the proper size and to tighten the Nut to the point just where it stops the movement in and out of the splined shaft. Then immediately turn the big nut back one full turn so that the shaft will easily move in and out of the big Nut. Also make sure that the shaft is properly greased in the grooves with a good bearing grease. Properly means just enough grease to fill the little groves, not a big mess all over everything.
- At this point it is always a good idea to raise the hood and to check the nut located on the steering gear universal joint to make sure that (hopefully it is there) and that it is tight, holding the other end of the splined shaft firmly to the steering gear. The spline is located just inside the firewall in the engine compartment where it comes through from inside the under dash where you have just been working and then down to the steering gear where you will see the universal joint with just one bolt and nut holding it tight.

At the moment, typing fast and trying to get this done as I am late (as usual) I may have overlooked something. However, if any of you have any questions later please let me know and if you know of any better method of doing this job in any phase I would sure appreciate knowing of it. There is always room for improvement when it comes to mechanics and proper methods.

Thanks for listening Gentleman, I hope this information is of help to someone in the future.
Kurt.G

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