Technical Anyone care to speculate what's going on inside this steering column?

How did that go together ?
Do y'all think it is safe ?
I can't wrap my head around it.

 

Two possible scenarios to my way of thinking.

The guy used a steering joint and them welded the tubes together.

Or he might have found and adapted a old Pinto flex shaft.



I'm only speculating,one thing about it it frees up some room. HRP

 

I'll bet its a U joint then welded like HRP said.

 

Here is the process on things like this, build it so it looks 'unique' and works (kinda), weld it all up and make it look pretty then sell it before it breaks.

 

Swivel or universal coupler?

 

did you ever take apart a tilt column? they have a spiffy U joint inside

 

either the ball style joint that GM uses in there tilt wheels or they are using bevel gears like some lift trucks and some old cab over trucks used . as long as the gears or joint is solid it should be OK .

 

It sure does free up some room.

I was faced with a situation where I needed to do almost that same thing.
I couldn't figure out how it could be done without throwing all sorts of heat from wending into the bearings. Unless there are no bearings. There certainly wouldn't be a chance to change them out. I'm pretty good at figuring stuff out so I got around my situation.

I sure would like to sit in it and see if it's sturdy or if it's like luckythirteenaggo describes

 

did you notice if it had power steering? that relieves a lot of stress on those joints. puts it more into the "safe" zone.

 

I weld steering u-joints when needed. A wet rag around everywhere but the actual weld area seems to have done the trick, for the last 15-'ish years.

On the one in the picture, the has to be some sort of internal support bearing, or else the shafts will not be stable.

 

If the column tubing stops where the black pipe ends just above the bend, I think you might just have enough room to slide a pre-assembled shaft with a u/j up from the bottom and sneak it through the bend in the column?

The main safety issue would be making sure the u/j doesn't come into contact with the column tubing but if there are good bearings or bushes at the top and the bottom of the column to support the shaft, and the shaft is securely retained so it can't slide up and down I think it should be ok.

 

I saw one like that a few years back on a Model A sedan. talked to the guy who owned it and he must have thought he was special or something, thought he had a big secret no one else could figure out, he wouldn't tell me what he did.

tilt steering wheels are not that complicated, neither are steering U-joints or even the dreaded pinto flexible shaft. it would not be difficult to figure out a way to do it.

 

So Im stuck thinking with our readily available & conventional steering parts. Maybe its something else. maybe its a a fucked up mess or maybe its brilliant ?

Right, the shaft to ujoint weld would not be an issue with the wet rag trick

But those inner support bearings would catch a lot of heat from the weld on the outer tube.

In the short side (wheel side) there needs to/should be 2 bearings or a long bushing. There should also be 2 bearings on the long side, & the top side bearing would also catch to much heat.

There needs to be a pretty stout column mount too to keep the outer tube from rotating.

 

Yes, they are neat joints and there's a few bearings all nestled in there too. Its royal PITA when they go bad. The wheel flops around like a hotdog down a hall way.

Fixing them isn't much fun- there's a lot of stuff, scary parts, and aliens packed in there.

 

I cannot tell by the pictures if it is a tilt column or not, not sure how it is supported but there could be a bearing that fits in the tubing with a small diameter hole for the steering shaft to go through.

 

LOL I was going to say the same thing. There was another model that used a cable-ish shaft too but I don't recall what it was.

Safe about as safe as a Corvair.

 

That's only the first time. The second one you do, you'll see there's an old guy behind the curtain, operating the levers. It's really pretty simple.

 

I'll give em this much; those green fuzzy dice sure are nifty.

 

I can picture a sorta simple way that I just know would work. It would take 15 years to type it

 

Make a you tube video

 

The guy is on flee bay.
I spotted the steering column while cruising for vintage accessories. Go getcha' some.

 

I hate to even think about this, but that looks like a PVC pipe fitting and a hose clamp pinching the bearing in the top end of it. Hope it is just a gimmick display, not a living, breathing, drive-able, car.

 

You are freaking right! That is most definitely pvc and a hose clamp

 

Lots of lipstick on that pig. The angle looks to be taped with black electrical. I've seen much better designs on local RRs. Likely it's geared.

 

I just blew up the picture on my CAD machine.

I feel sick.

 

Let me guess.....Fuzzy Dice King.
I bet the cry baby crowd made the guy rich.

 

That was my immediate reaction too and i thought this was going to be one of those wtf type discussions, but instead it went all rather serious.

Chris

 

Great for serviceability like that. Like when they converted US cars down here to RHD many years ago, the LHD box was swapped across, bolted into a fabricated section that was weld to the chassis. Everything had to be cut open to get at it when required. As stated I hope it's not PVC, wouldn't pass safety requirements down here either way.

 

It's a secret .

 

Noooo, they didn't do that! Really?
I always thought it must be kind of a pain to make all parts in both left and right configuration. Guess they don't make all of them that way.