Hi George, I spoke with John Norman and new parts are not available, except possibly on eBay from one of the few sellers in the Middle East/Mediterranean or who knows will have a NOS part here. The big thing is, why do they fail and how do you fix it so it stays fixed? Stevan In a message dated 12/29/2011 12:09:58 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Yes, this is a common failure mode on this car. The bushing has a rubber collar that separates two metal steering column connectors from one another. When that coupling fails, it usually breaks the ground wire that "jumps" the rubber bushing in order to allow the steering column to be grounded - which is necessary for the horn to work. The failure can cause the horn to either quit entirely or, become intermittent depending on whether or not the wire has parted completely. The big danger with this failure is that the steering itself can fail altogether IF the rubber collar breaks completely loose. It's so important that this dampening bushing not fail, that I would try to buy a new one, if possible, and not rely on a used one. When I fitted power steering from a Milano to my GTV-6, I had an adapter made-up to mate the GTV-6 steering column to the Milano's power steering rack (which are different). Since the Milano system doesn't use this rubber collar between the steering column and the rack, my car no longer uses this part. George Graves '86 GTV-6 3.0 'S' On Dec 29, 2011, at 8:05 AM, [email protected] wrote: > I just found that on my low mileage 1983 GTV 6, that is has a fairly > common > problem in the steering column. There's a bushing in there that wears, > allowing enough play so that the horn doesn't always work. > Specifically, if I > push the top of the steering wheel away from me, no horn. If I pull > the top > of the wheel toward me, it works fine. > > I have a good used one coming and won't be taking things apart until > that > arrives and survives inspection. I kind of expect the problem to be > some > variety of poor bushing material and lack of grease on assembly, so > I'm > strongly considering adding a grease fitting. > > Has anyone else had to deal with this? Comments? How common a > problem is > it? > Stevan Thomas > 1983 GTV 6 > 1973 Berlina > -- > to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi > or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected] -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
