Play between steering column and intermediate shaft after manual rack sonversion

[DaLanZhu]

Hi everyone!

My AE86 steering has a lot of play and feels terrible when steering, almost similar to modern cars.

I had a look underneath and saw that the previous owner had converted to a manual steering rack. The rack itself and the outer joints look brand new and perfect, but the intermediate staft sits very loosely in the steering column.
I can even feel it shaking when I gently push it up and down.

I assume the previous owner, in the process of converting to manual steering, had replaced the intermediate shaft, but forgot to add the rubber-like material which is used to glue it inside the steering rack.

Any ideas where I could get similar material, or how it is supposed to look like? I assume it should be slightly flexible to not make the steering super-direct, but not too soft so that you still get some feedback. Of course, must be durable as well.

What material did you guys use?

Thanks.

[Ivan141]

I suspect you are talking about the bushings holding the steering rack in (no idea what intermediate shaft you mean).
If the car is converted from a power to a manual steering rack then one mount will be way to big and need a special bushing to
fill the gap. Techno Toy Tuning sells these.
Put up some pictures if you can, it might help us see the problem sooner.

[DaLanZhu]

No mate, I'm talking about the shaft which connects the steering colum to the unoversal shaft. When you convert from power to manual steering, the steering columnn for thr power steering variant is too short, hence you need the replace the bottom part of the steering shaft
I thought that part is called intermediate shaft.

[Power_uP]

Helping to repair a fault is much more difficult without being there to physically inspect and handle the components, so as Ivan pointed out its probably best to upload a photo if possible.

[zenki]

^^He’s talking about the shaft that sits in the steeringcolumn and connects to the steering joint. When you go from powersteering to manual rack you get the shaft out and replace it with a mk3 supra one. Can’t remember where i saw it but some guy used the same glue they use for car windshield installs. It gets hard but still has some flex in it.

[mad.matt]

Yeaaaaahhhhh....erm, I welded that shaft to the steering shaft hahahah.
So direct steering is in order

I would suggest, like the other guys, a good smeer of tigerseal or something similar