It may be illegal in other countries/states as well, but who'd ever
know? I'm not advocating being an out-and-out scoff-law, here, but
really, if the original parts aren't available, what choices are
there? Even in places with strict yearly or bi-yearly inspections,
nobody is going to notice it (you can't even really see the coupling
in a GTV-6) and if they did, the cars are so old that they're not
really going to know what it's supposed to look like.
George Graves
'86 GTV-6 3.0 'S'
On Dec 29, 2011, at 3:24 PM, The Baylys wrote:
In my opinion this joint should not be welded. The joint forms part
of the
collapsible steering column arrangement (as far as I know). It's also
illegal, at least in Australia, to weld any part of the steering
assembly.
Many other vehicles have a similar joint which is nothing more than
a piece
of cloth-reinforced rubber. i.e. a piece of conveyer belt.
It's a while since I looked at one of these joints but maybe a
substitute
can be fabricated from a couple of pieces of reinforced rubber cut
from
radiator hose or similar. More pieces add rotational stiffness, and
redundancy.
BTW, when the horn failed in my Alfettas I simply replaced the rigid
earth
strap across the joint with an earth strap fabricated out of flat
braided
wire. If you push the wire so it 'fattens', this allows a
considerable
amount of give/flex to prevent it tightening across the joint and
snapping.
Beatle
Oz
--
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]
