I have play in the steering wheel-iM fairly sure.

Tiny
ANONYMOUS
  • MEMBER
  • 1987 CHRYSLER FIFTH AVENUE
  • 88,000 MILES
I have play in the steering wheel-im fairly sure it is in the pot coupling so the shoes have to be replaced in the pot coupling
normally I go to a junk yard first to pratice doing the job before I take mine apart but now that this car is so old, I can not find it in a junkyard around where I live- my only car is a 1987 5th ave---can I pull the sterring column back out of the pot coupling without having to remove the pot coupling from the worm gear on the sterring gear? In order to remove the pot coupling I have to drive out the roll pin first and that is impossible because the parts are so old the pin is like being welded into the pot coupling-i tried this on a sterring gear in the junkyard and broke the drift I was using
hope you can help thanks
Thursday, January 31st, 2013 AT 10:08 PM

1 Reply

Tiny
CARADIODOC
  • MECHANIC
  • 33,879 POSTS
There's billions of those in the junk yards. Look for any Volare, Aspen, Diplomat, LeBaron, Monaco, Gran Fury, or any truck up to the '93 models. I've rebuilt lots of them on the trucks when I was a suspension and alignment specialist at a Chrysler dealership in the '90s. Rust should not be an issue. What helped me was I had an 18" long forked air chisel bit for my air hammer that I broke, and I ground it down to fit those roll pins for rack and pinion steering couplers that were hard to reach. The roll pin you're after is the same size. The secret is the punch must be fat enough to not go inside the hollow pin, and it must not be tapered so it won't get wedged in the hole. Even when they're rusty, those pins don't come out that hard.

Be sure you can really see movement in that joint before you tear into it. I've had a bunch of these cars, (still have two Volares), and I had that steering wander on one of them. That one turned out to have a sloppy outer tie rod end. I have never come across a worn coupler on a car. I've only rebuilt them on the trucks, and I did a lot of them. The steering gear boxes need frequent adjustment too on the trucks and REAL often on the rear-wheel-drive vans, but never on the cars. Don't know why the cars don't develop that looseness. They use the same design.
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Thursday, January 31st, 2013 AT 11:17 PM

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