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Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 11:15 am
by 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
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 11:37 am
by Theo
Blow torch to heat up the aluminium linkage, that'll do it.
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 12:24 pm
by E30BeemerLad
Make sure you have completely removed the pinch bolt or it won't go anywhere
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 12:25 pm
by 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.
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 12:28 pm
by 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
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 12:29 pm
by E30BeemerLad
yes get rid of the bolt
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 2:44 pm
by Jozi
Have you started your conversion Phil?
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 8:31 pm
by 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
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 8:35 pm
by Theo
Try doing that on a car where the linkage is seized onto the steering column. It doesn't work.
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 8:40 pm
by DanThe
Yeah, well you can use your hammer/blowtorch then innit
Re: Easiest way to remove coupling from spline?
Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 2:47 pm
by rancido64
DanThe wrote: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
Jozi wrote: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
