Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[ka]

I read that I am not the only contributor to have had steering column failure. The Morgan column is made of two section, with a steering 'gearbox' towards the top. This reduces the steering ratio, not increases it as the cables for the air slide, throttle etc mounted on the steering wheel do not respond well to a 360 degree rotating wheel. I achieve full side-to-side lock in two-thirds of a steering wheel turn. The column is predominantly tubular, with engineered sections silver soldered, and pinned in either end of each tube.
Over the past 69 years, the soldering, and pins had worn slightly, so I re-soldered, and pinned with heavier grade dowels.
Anyone else had similar issues?
I have also quite drastically altered the end bush support in the column, and replaced the drag-link, cup and cone set-up from the original. I can post some pics if you are interested?
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KA

Better three than four.

[MikeEdwards]

Funnily enough I was talking to someone about steering column bushes the other day at Tatton Park - he'd found that his Viva HB had no bush fitted, where it should be nylon, and made one from phosphor bronze.

The Viva has a two-part column, but it's telescopic and designed to collapse in the event of a collision - while I am fortunate in not having experienced that, the telescopic action does make it a bit easier to change the steering coupling if necessary.

[Rootes75]

My 47 Minx failed her test years back due to a huge amount of play in the steering, she was off the road for almost two years while I found the inner steering box parts to re-build her. I did that and replaced the drag link ends etc and to be quite honest the change is better but not all that noticeable, it did pass the test but only just! Just goes to show that it was probable not all that good in the first place!
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Various Rootes Vehicles.

[Ronniej]

I have not had steering column failure in the usual sense but I did have an alarming experience shortly after I bought my Singer Roadster.
I had taken it on a test run round a country park close to where I lived.
I was turning in a (fortunately empty) car park when the steering became loose.
The steering wheel was no longer connecting with the column.
It turned out the wheel was from an early Morris Minor and had a slightly different taper to the spline on the column. It had simply been forced on by over tightening the central nut and, in time, the splines on the wheel failed.
I had to trailer the car home and was relieved to find the damage was confined to the wheel and the splined taper on the column was undamaged.
Another wheel sourced through the Owner's club fixed the problem.
The seller claimed the wheel had never been touched during his ownership so either he had been very lucky or was spinning a line.

[Ray White]

I once had the unnerving experience of complete steering failure in an Austin 1100. The column has the usual splined connection with the rack but on this occasion the clamp had been left loose with potentially disastrous results. I was lucky.

Just this evening I was looking at the amount of play in the Dodge Brothers steering box. There is a considerable amount of play with at least 1" at the steering wheel. Not an easy job but something I will attend to before long.

[bob2]

In a clubman estate the layout is similar to that in the 1100 Ray mentioned.
I had one for a couple of years, one saturday night (or was it early sunday since it was around 3.30 am) whilst coming back from a night out with friends, I was feeling the steering quite vague and told so to my cousin who was with me but did not bother much about it and continued on our way home.
When we were just on the other side of the block, I had to make a 90 degree left bend and obviously being a junction was driving very slowly. I turned the wheel but the clubby kept going straight!!!
That was a lucky escape, imagine if it had done it before whilst driving at 45/50 miles as we had been doing!!!
We did not want to look into it at that time, so I went to the rhs wheel whilst he went to the lhs wheel and turned the steering that way, parked it up there and walked the few metres left.
The following morning got up early to investigate the problem, finding that the only problem was that the nut clamping both rack and rod together had undone itself so tightened that up and put some thread lock on the thread before tightening.

[Ray White]

On some cars, there is a universal coupling with the nuts and bolts 'wired' for safety. When the cup bushes wear out it is customary to replace the complete unit; unfortunately, the after market replacements are in my experience sub standard. I have had them come apart in use. My solution for the GT6 was to turn up the 8 little cup washer/bushes in nylon and re use the original coupling. This was an improvement on the original rubber material which had more "give" than was desirable.

I looked into producing these little bushes for The British Sports car Centre in Goldhawk Road, London - but the project came to nought; it made no economic sense.