I can help here,
If you look at the shaft where it comes through the firewall you will notice that the actual shaft is inside the larger column.
This steering shaft can be pushed into the steering column untill the splines are even with the outer part.

Pushed means a 2lb mallet and a block of wood of course ;)

I have mine colapsed as far as possible to minimise the ujoint angles but that requires a different location for the center support and longer center shaft, of course thats easily obtainable from flaming river...

 

I noticed yesterday that my joints have play in theme from all the binding. They are self destructing :mad . I was also looking how the rack was mounted and I don't understand why It wasnot mounted more to the left to straighten out the angles. They could have mounted the rack anywhere they wanted. If you look at the bracket the tie rods bolt to you can see it is offset on the rack already. But not enough. If you want something done right you got to do it yourself. Words to live by.

 

78, sometimes I got to be there to actually LOOK for myself to see wha'ts going on, I find Pix are helpful, but cameras don't tell the whole story allways....I have seen a total of ONE steeroids install did by Chris, 69my way, down the street from me, it looked fine, I did not notice much of anything except they did about the same side/side offset as I wound up with, meaning any further to the driver's side, and the end of the rack would rub the tires....an instance I recall playing with....the position they did was a bit lower and further forward than mine, but the largest differance was I tilted the rack steering input upward a solid 15 degrees or more than they did, so I had to cut out the rear lower section of the driver's engine mount horn....no biggie, it's a small block and is the tension side never the torque side....hasn't failed yet anyway....;-)))......

BUT tipping that input shaft upward so much, combined with pushing my allready loose column all the way collapsed, damn near, and using junkyard parts, I managed to cobble up a good solid input linkage, complete with rag joint for road vibration isolation....

NOW having said all that, back in '95 or so one of the first things I had to do was change out that large wheeled, fixed column, and the cheapest route was a column from like a 78 or so....and the later wheel.....I rebuilt the column and trimmed it out to fit my '72, and about 3 years ago, finally moved the entire wheel assy back off the firewall, along with the rack install, that made it 3/4 inch closer to me, which fits ME just fine, so that didn't affect the rack install one bit really....as I moved the column shaft back out an inch or so....

as I"m fond of saying, the only thing more or less stock on my car is the basic overall shape/style.....someday I"m powder coating the bumpers.....


as for the aluminum tie rods....not on my car, I seen my self with aluminum doing some funky crap I don't like, and too boot that corrosion from dissimilar metals makes me back up....ME, I"d slather those tie rod ends and bolts in RTV, then run them into the tie rod ends and adjust up quickly....
keeps the corrosion to a minimun....

GENE

GENE


[Modified by mrvette, 12:17 PM 12/27/2003]

 

I still have not gotten my steeroids installed and am seriously considering selling it and going with new/rebuilt stock. However, it seemed to me that when I did actually have it mounted in my car that if I had that black piece that the ujoints connect to shortened by and inch or so that it would probably make my ujoints very straight and probably have no binding.

 

AOL hell dumped my reply, but the short form is,....I assume the black piece is the steering column shaft....and yes, collapsing it can/will reduce angles...
but then I dunno if the linkage shafts are long enough to make it work....

I cheated as you see by my pix....marked the telescoping junkyard shaft, then had my buddy weld it.....problem solved....

Dont get me rong, I looked at heim joints, and all sorts of sources for them, and also Flaming River and I talked a good bit 2-3 times on the phone, but infact their stuff and the heim joint prices here locally were just tooo damn high priced for serious consideration by me....so I did what I did for about 200 bux total price.....

GENE


GENE

 

If the black piece is shortened the angle will be more severe. It already looks like 45 degrees (!!!) which is off the charts as far as traditional machine design goes. It's difficult to understand why a product (much less a steering device) would be designed outside of accepted engineering practice. I am going to take my column out and shorten it in order to decrease the angle and maybe get away with 2 universals like Gene. This will mean making a new, longer "black piece" but that's OK. I'm kind of concerned about collapsing the steering column, that's made like that to collapse on impact.

BTW. I talked to a guy last year who had a 427 Cobra kit car that had a contorted steering made out of universal joints and it bound up on him coming out of a turn (at speed)!

 

BBShark, I am not too concerned about collapsing the column, as they seem more concerned with 'end on' collisions bending the frame and pushing the steering shaft in throug the wheel....but when the entire assy is off axis like with any of our rack installs seen so far....I fail to see much if any hazard, expecially when compared to various cars/vans...etc in the junkyards....do your own looking, just not at GM, but various designs...you will see what I mean....however I find anyting over 30deg is supposed to be bad design....but tellyou what, I'm right around 30 deg on my design, and I fail to understand what happens that yet another u-joint in the setup there somehow does not take up enough angle that any of them are near 30 deg let alone in a bind.....I dunno...wonder if you need play with the stud holding the heim joint, those nuts moving it right and left off the frame mount there???
I make NO assertions about my design as working or workability on another shark, just what works for ME....

GENE

 

The bottom line is it is a poor design the angles are to far apart. I am going to correct this problem on a 1,200 system and make it like It should have been in the first place. I just need one free weekend to do it. When it is finished I will tell everyone here how I did it. I will Wright down all the angles and so forth.

 

I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MINE NOW FOR ACOUPLE OF DAYS. I TOO HAD A BINDING IN TWO POSITIONS. DROVE IT ANYWAY AND WAS VERY PLEASED EXCEPT FOR THE BINDING. BUT LAST WEEK I STARTED HEARING ASCREECH WHEN TURNING TO LEFT FROM A STRAGHT POSITION. THE CAUSE WAS THE SUPPORT BEARING WAS WIGGLING MOVING SIDE TO SIDE LETTING THE DOUBLE JOINT MOVE OVER AND RUB THE HEADER. I ADJUSTED IT AND IT DID THE SAME THING. WELL AFTER A FEW CHOICE WORD AND ADJUSTING I FOUND THE ALLEN SET SCREWS ON THE BOTTOM JOINT AT THE RACK HAD COME LOOSE AND WAS LETTING THE SHAFT MOVE.
ALSO I FOUND MY BINDING PROBLEM WAS THE SET SCREW WERE RUBBING THE MOTOR MOUNT, I KNEW THE WERE CLOSE BUT DIDNT THINK THEY WERE RUBBING.

 

ALSO I FOUND MY BINDING PROBLEM WAS THE SET SCREW WERE RUBBING THE MOTOR MOUNT, I KNEW THE WERE CLOSE BUT DIDNT THINK THEY WERE RUBBING. [/QUOTE]

SO you are saying the input shaft of the rack was tilted so far up the universal collar clamp screw head was rubbing the rear lower edge of the engine mount horn...steel frame part....?? that is my interpretation of what you said....

that is highly interesting there can be so much variation, wonder if the frame was ever bent?? guys talk about a lot of variations in these frames, but that just don't sound right to me.....
one of the reasons I make no huge representations as to the repeatability of my brackets or rack position on another car....
freaking tolenances, additive, subtractive....makes mass production a bitch...

GENE

 

i dont understand what the big freakin deal is here...
bolted it on...
made my adjustments...
no prob...i love it!

yes...the hardest part of the install was the "binding" ajustment, but not that big of a deal...
well worth it and i wouldnt own a C3 without it...period.

 

Getting the rack to fit is harder than it sounds guys.
The left to right positioning is a really big compromise, Any further left and you get tire rubbing, any further right and you get into header clearance issues.

The angle of the rack is one place where I am different from Steeroids and Gene, My rack is straighter up and down so the input shaft is pointed more towards the steering collumn.

Like Gene I colapsed my column to reduce the u-jount angles. Mine are about 15' in all axis'. I have noticed tho in some pics I've seen that most of you would be hitting your headers if you did that, so I'm sure the steeroids solution fits more cars than mine would.

So good luck and remember this conversion is a exersize on compromise...

 

VEE hav NO room ver Compromise, ve vant it ALL!!!, right comrade???


GENE

 

:rofl:

Keith

 

78 Vette, your system should have no bind in it. This should be attainable via adjustments. Have you spoken with tech support to try and solve the problem? If you have then I don't want to be redundant with my suggestions. I need to know what you have adjusted. Did you move the steering column at all (as in loosen the bolts and move it side to side or front to back)?

Keep in mind that the highest loaded condition for the steering is with the car at rest and the steering wheel being turned. Even the stock system twists the frame slightly in this condition.

 

With the car running in park there is allot of movement in the bracket that mounts heim joint. This is mainly because the joints are binding this is what I did to correct it.
Moving the steering column left or right.
pushed the steering shaft into the column as far as it could go and still maintain a sufficient amount of spline in the joint.
Adjusted the heim joint in and out.
Checked body mounts to see if the were collapsed (excellent cond)
I am using hooker super comp headers they gave me allot of room and don't interfere with the adjustment of the heim joint.
Now the universal joints are wearing from a year and a half of binding so they need to be replaced.
I think if the shaft between the two joints needs to be longer this would straighten the joints out slightly and would probably work.

What do you think

 

First off I would try to angle the steering column towards the engine to soften the angle of the upper u-joint. Also, double-check the lower u-joint (at the steering rack). The top of the pinion from the rack should be flush with the inside of the yoke on the u-joint. If the u-joint set screw is tightened in the center of the indentation on the pinion then it should be flush. If the u-joint sits further down on the pinion then that changes the angle that the upper u-joint has to accommodate.


The upper u-joint should look like this. The lower yoke should point at the upper yoke.

Please let me know what else you need.

 

Did everything you said more than once.
I honestly don't think playing around with the adjustments is going to help I adjusted everything so many times and always come up with the same results.
At this point adjusting is a waste of time I need to replace the top joint and start all over again.
Witch seems pointless


[Modified by 78 Vette, 4:50 PM 12/29/2003]

 

I looked at the pix there Steeroids provided, and had some thoughts, so I asked my artistic wife for her opinion, as to perspective only, not that she knew much what looking at....

and the concensus was the angle on the top most joint looks rather steep and the middle joint has next to no angle by comparison....seems to me it would not take a whole lot of variation to make that top joint bind.....

I know my install is close, but no bind....

the only way I see to correct any problems is to lengthen the intermediate shaft (the one going through the heim joint) and collapse the steering column....

faced the same sort of thing doing my install...really not much differant then their kit....same rack afterall.....

I feel the fact I have a SB engine makes my install a bit easier, I can't imagine a BB having the same pan dimensions, allowing the rack to ride as high as I have mine......let alone with the input shaft more vertical....

GENE

 

Gene I agree, the angle on that first joint is horrible!
It could easily be 1/2 of that angle by lenghtening the center shaft.

Shafting is cheap (comapratively) from flaming river...