Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?

[rancido64]

Just wondering what people find to be the easiest way to remove the steering coupling from the shaft/spline on the steering column?

Managed to get the bottom end detached from the rack handy enough but the top end is barely shifting off the spline.
Is it just a matter of brute force? Had a crowbar there and could've used that for the leverage to prise it off but don't want to damage the steering column by yoinking on it too hard or is that something i shouldn't be worrying about?

Any advice appreciated

Phil

[Theo]

Blow torch to heat up the aluminium linkage, that'll do it.

[E30BeemerLad]

Make sure you have completely removed the pinch bolt or it won't go anywhere

[e301988325i]

It's worth levering the split open with a large screwdriver to release it. This might be obvious, but the bolt sits in a groove and must be completely removed.

[rancido64]

Aaah, so the bolt needs to come out altogether?
It's been loosened a fair bit and we wedged a screwdriver into the split to open it out a bit more, but as i said it still wouldn't budge.

Cheers guys

[E30BeemerLad]

yes get rid of the bolt

[Jozi]

Have you started your conversion Phil?

[DanThe]

The EASIEST and most NON_DESTRUCTIVE way to remove a steering linkage is to remove the RH rack mounting bolt and slacken the LH, swing the rack forward and the linkage will drop out with no hammers/pry bars/chisels/scaff bars or blow torches

[Theo]

Try doing that on a car where the linkage is seized onto the steering column. It doesn't work.

[DanThe]

Yeah, well you can use your hammer/blowtorch then innit

[rancido64]

The EASIEST and most NON_DESTRUCTIVE way to remove a steering linkage is to remove the RH rack mounting bolt and slacken the LH, swing the rack forward and the linkage will drop out with no hammers/pry bars/chisels/scaff bars or blow torches

This is what we did and while the bottom came off the rack no problem, the top end was being a right biatch
Things can never just be simple for me lol

Have you started your conversion Phil?

Slowly slowly catchy monkey Was supposed to lift the m40 out on friday but my mate couldn't get hold of the engine crane so we just made a bit more progress on getting it ready to be lifted out.
Pretty much all that's left is undo the engine mounts and lift it out