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You have a knock off box, that is not original and many were sold over the past 10 years that were bad. The fact the D-Flat is not at 12 o'clock may be the gear set but I have found these boxes were all over the place and the D-Flat may not even be at high lash. The give away on this box- lock ring and lash bolt are not what came on real Saginaw boxes. I recommend you check any new box before you install it.
You have a knock off box, that is not original and many were sold over the past 10 years that were bad. The fact the D-Flat is not at 12 o'clock may be the gear set but I have found these boxes were all over the place and the D-Flat may not even be at high lash. The give away on this box- lock ring and lash bolt are not what came on real Saginaw boxes. I recommend you check any new box before you install it.
Thanks GTR1999, I noticed the lock ring also. The "new" box was already on order when I noticed the Rag Joint at a strange angle to the flat on the shaft. I've been looking around today, and it looks like a Pre 69 joint will go onto the flat shaft.
I was thinking that "Bubba" might have gotten out his BFH.
That 'flat' should be at the center of travel for the steering box. Just rotate it thru full-lock side to side and find the center of that travel. The flat should be very near that center location.
The intent of the system is that the steering box will be installed in centered position, The steering column will be rotated to 'center' position, and the front wheels will be relatively straight when at the middle of steering link travel side-to-side. The ragjoint is to be installed in proper orientation with their respective components. Then the wheel alignment and wheel toe adjustments will be made to fine-tune the steering settings.
That also appears to be one of the common imported rags, if the box is near center in your picture the bolt should be topside. Many of them had the d flat 180* out, how bad is it when you can't even copy a good part? To date I have not seen a quality new rag joint on the market. I stocked up on some of the full spline rags that are good but unless someone can get the material to make a good rag, with the d-flat in the 12 o'clock position, there won't be many options.
With all of this mismatching going on, is there an easy way to make sure the column gets correctly "Clocked" ?
I really don't want to be 180 off when reconnection everything.
I was just trying to make sure that the Column would be in the correct position. (Notice the paint mark 180 degrees Off in my picture, in relation to the rag joint ) I think I verified that last night, by rotating the rag joint back into the position shown in Jim Shea's picture. The turn signals then cancelled as expected, so looks like I'm good there. Box showed up, just waiting on the new coupler.
The steering column (missing serration on spline at steering wheel end); the steering bos (missing serration on input spline), and ragjoint (locations for bolt shank cross-engagement) all have alignment 'marks' on them. Other 'stuff' just needs to be set in "straight ahead" position (steering wheel, front wheels, & steering link components just need to be approximately centered. Final adjustment with toe adjusters (as mentioned above).
I removed the two 5/16 bolts to separate from the column. Disconnected the Pitman arm, and took out the three bolts for the Box.
Then the Rag Joint fell off in my hand. ( guess You can clock it wrong, if You don't tighten the Bolt !
New In..........
No, Not an original, but everything seem fine.
Moral to this Story,
If You look under Your hood, and do Not see what is in Jim Shea's picture, You MIGHT want to investigate..................
You can replace this rag joint easily about 2 hour job looks as tho it Recieved a hard wack
Its taken me longer than that just to get the bolts loosened on mine, I'm in the middle of the job now. Are you just loosening things, sliding the column in to get room and then drawing it back out after?
I'm looking at the pictures and don't see the flat mentioned on the rag, could someone circle it in one of the pic?
I'll hit it with some PB blaster and come back to it tomorrow.
The bolts in the ragjoint are "capture" bolts, so you have to completely remove them before the joint will slide off the shafts. The shanks slide into a notch cut into those shafts so that retention is assured.
06-16-2019, 07:25 AM
Rag Joint, Any Ideas how this happened?
