E30 Zone

My steering was vauge, especially around the straight ahed position and the car seemed to float around on the road, the faster I went the worse it got. On good advice on this site I decided my first port of call should be to replace the coupling (Guibo).

I loosened the steering rack to move it forward so the UJ's could be removed from the column. When i moved the rack the whole lot just fell to bits. Imagine this lot colapsing at 70mph on the motorway or in the middle of a hard turn!!

This is the steering coupling on my car, the car passed its mot 1 week before.

looks like you did it just in time tbh

id be back to the test centre and show them, thats out off order

Holy Macaroni !!!

u must drive the shit out of your car!

rich318i wrote:id be back to the test centre and show them, thats out off order

Don't worry, I'm on first name terms with my mechanic and although I don't want to upset him I'll be making sure he knows my thoughts.

bmw9818 wrote:u must drive the shit out of your car!

Well the previous owners must have, I only bought it in september and it has been in the garage since then going through a light resto.

that happened to my 318is, i drove back from santa pod with the bolts catching which in turn was turning the rack

this is a terrifying thought...mine is mid resto and you can bet this weekend i ill be checking mine...are the donuts expensive to replace?

No it was only £10 from gsf. It is hard to see what state it is in when it is intact. Best thing to do is grab either side of the coupling and twist in opposite directions. If you can twist it, it's knackered.

Alex wrote:that happened to my 318is, i drove back from santa pod with the bolts catching which in turn was turning the rack

it only happened cause you diffed it into the cones

e30topless wrote:

Alex wrote:that happened to my 318is, i drove back from santa pod with the bolts catching which in turn was turning the rack

it only happened cause you diffed it into the cones

It was Jimmy who fooked it

i will have to get a slip diff for this years pod

Cant believe that passed! Mine failed yesterday becuase my steering is vague. Havent got it off the car yet but I can see its got a split in it. Got nothing on yours though

Before I pulled the steering rack forward it was quite hard to tell. But twisting on either side was the give-away.

The wiki usefully details this position on vague steering, but no guide on how to replace the donut..

Mods, given the points raised by Jim is is worth a small section in the wiki on how to change this donut for us novices...if their is already one buried in the wiki my apologies... could you for me the link..

cheers

Gary

aimlessrock wrote:The wiki usefully details this position on vague steering, but no guide on how to replace the donut..

Mods, given the points raised by Jim is is worth a small section in the wiki on how to change this donut for us novices...if their is already one buried in the wiki my apologies... could you for me the link..

cheers

Gary

Sounds like you have just volunteered him to do it. Well done!

jimf - would be most appreciated by the long serving members if you did a little piece for the wiki. You've got half the photos already

The wiki has some good stuff on it and is a valuable but underused resource judging by the repetition of certain questions elsewhere on the forum.

Cheers
Toby

I'll do a write up with some more pics. It's quite an easy job to remove the two UJ's and the coupling but it is held together with four large rivets. I had a machine shop remove them for the price of 8 cans of stella!

Good man!

If I post a how to guide in the technical forum would someone be able to add it to the Wiki for me?

I'm sure the wiki wizz-kid could do that!

Looks like the rubber has been well shagged for ages, its designed so it doesnt fall to bits when the rubber is shagged, as you have proven.

If it was an E36 steering linkage and it had failed you would have more than likely crashed the car, they literally shear in half on the steel section which was a recall item I think

top work Jimf...this article has me a little spooked (and no doubt other zoners too)...your tail could have ended very badly.