Steering column and tubing removal

[msh209]

Hello,
Sorry this is a bit long and windy I’m a novice so sorry .

I tried to remove the steering column and it’s tube housing today but failed. I was expecting the column to have a ‘leaf spring’ and 2 upper mountings each with two bolts and to remove the steering wheel etc then with the u-Joint nut loosened and the leaf spring removed to be able to wiggle the column shaft out of the u-joint and remove the column housing and column together.

BUT sadly NO, my set-up is different! I have one upper mounting (2 bolts) and a pedal bracket that seems to be part of the column tubing housing. It’s factory but is very different to what I was expecting.

I got as far as removing all the peripherals like wheel and the switch instrument and the bolts for the upper mounting and the hex bolt for the metal thingy with the ignition switch and the clutch pedal. I then suspected that I needed to remove the brake pedal and after that three bolts for the pedal bracket (this does seems to be part of the column tubing). Anyway at this point I stopped because I realised I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t want to F-Up massively, so I put it all back together again and thought I’d ask for some advice on here.

If anyone can advise me about removing this type of column that I have tried to describe that would be great! Just to reiterate, It looks to me that my column housing has a pedal bracket as part of it and so at the end its a tube plus bracket and the reason for removing is to replace the bearings.

Thing is I’ve managed to fix quite a lot of issues this summer so I thought I was up for this job but it looks like I’m not that clever after all

Help appreciated, I’m requesting any tips or tricks that I’m missing because I can’t even find a diagram of this set-up in the Haynes. BTW it’s not got power steering and it’s 1992

Also I was intending to replace the u-joint shaft. I took advice from here and got a second hand one that seems fine. Any advice on how to replace that too would be good but it looks from my efforts today that my original Ujoint shaft was just loose and not tightened up enough so i may be lucky here!

At the steering column end UJ, I had a 13mm nut and on the other side that I couldn’t see it had a 10mm bolt head, seems odd? Is that an original bolt? There was also a second 13mm nut so it must have gotten loose at some stage in the past and a two nut trick used to try and keep it tight?
So questions about the ujoint shaft
1- can it be replaced without removing other parts (the access looks very bad to a novice like me)
2- would you detach the steering rack side from the top or bottom of the engine bay? ( the access from underneath even if I get on ramps seems really tight)
3- I don’t understand if this UJ shaft is LHD or RHD or if that matters here but I do have the RHD shaft. Maybe that’s a mute point for this part. Just ignore this question if it’s stupid.

Thank you !

[msh209]

Also thanks for all the answers on a previous post by me.

[msh209]

Update…..
Looking more closely the 3 bolts that attach the pedal frame/bracket (that’s part of the column tubing) onto the car frame are actually two (looks to me like) black rivets attaching to the firewall and one nut attaching to the upper frame where there is a threaded stub sticking out from the body.

So I’m glad I stopped and put it back together because id be stuck and probably would have done something stupid as my patience ran out.

The firewall ‘bolts’ have black round heads but they looked like bolt heads to me yesterday.

Looks like the solution may be to detach the brake pedal and the clutch pedal and then these two rivets removed somehow and then undo the upper nut and then the column tubing can be pulled out of the UJ with its pedal brackety attachment in toe. I’ll drive it to a trusted garage next week and find out what they think

Wish I had a leaf spring setup like the Haynes manual said.

BW

[Blueshark]

What is it you want to do ?

Joost

scirocco53@ziggo.nl

[PeteGLi]

If you look at the following link
https://volkswagen.7zap.com/en/rdw/scir ... 21-126000/
you have the top column shown.

It is attached to the car body at five points - two bolts at the top just below the ignition switch and steering lock housing; one nut at the top of the pedal box; two nuts in the engine bay which also help secure the cross brace for the brake linkage.

If the two bolts at the top of the column are the originals, you will not have hex heads, because they were designed to shear off when tightened to a specified torque. You will have to figure out an alternative way to undo them.

[msh209]

Thanks for the diagram. Yes the nuts going into the firewall are original so thanks for pointing out they are shear bolts and not some type of rivets as I thought. I’ll seek advice on those. Thank you again

[msh209]

What is it you want to do ?

Joost

scirocco53@ziggo.nl

Hi Joost,
I was trying to remove the steering column and the tubing to replace bearings/bushes. I have the shear bolts on the firewall as per the diagram link from PeteGLI. so I’m wondering now if I can leave the tubing in-situ and knock out the lower bearing and push the new one in using a Jack or some device that I could try and make. I’m thinking on it, fortunately I’m not in a rush.

[mark1gls]

The bottom bearing is plastic and can pushed in by hand, I left the tube in place when I replaced mine.
Not done the top bearing yet.


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363560288775 ... R8ydnZzPYg

[PeteGLi]

Thanks for the diagram. Yes the nuts going into the firewall are original so thanks for pointing out they are shear bolts and not some type of rivets as I thought. I’ll seek advice on those. Thank you again

The sheer bolts are the ones numbered 3 in the diagram.
Leave what you thought were rivets alone. Just undo the two nuts in the engine bay.

But as Mark says, you can change the bushes / bearings without removing the column.