My steering has the same type of slop in it and it's been geting
gradually worse for years.  Traced the beginning of itback when I
disconnected the PS pump and drove the van as a non PS ride with a PS
rack.  yeah the steering effort is increased for sure, and I'll bet
the hanover folk didn't think they'd need a beefy u joint in there
for the effortlessness of power steering.

Scott, any chance you could do a ball park guess as to the diameter
of the pin in that u joint?

I've been meaning to carry a spare round piece of steel or bolt in
case it should ever fail on me.  I think I have a spare from the
Syncro melt down, but couldn't locate it any time soon.

Thanks

DM&FS

At 08:03 PM 7/28/2009, Scott Daniel - Turbovans wrote:
>I havn't seen those wear ever.
>( I can come up with a good used  one though )
>
>factors, that I can see, contirbuting to wear on that part, besides sheer
>age...
>or running with not-so-hot shocks,
>tires out of balance, or tires or wheels out of round,
>or no offenee...........believe it or not, clumsy heavy-handed steering.
>
>I wouldnt' think this myself, but I let a guy use a vanagon of mine for
>about a year and bit once......
>non-power steering.
>when I got it back it had a solid two inches of steeing play at the edge of
>the steering wheel.
>which I thought was weird since vangons almost never get steering play much
>.......they get worn tie rod ends, sure ......but for play to develope, like
>slop in the linkage , that doesn't really happen much.
>  Then one day I watched this same guy.........who weighs about 350 lbs at
>least, back his own van out of my shop......
>and when it came time to turn the steering wheel, he *jerked* the sterring
>input. Of course at low speed, that's rough on the steering linake.
>And I don't mean just pull in the direction he wanted to steer, I mean 'jerk
>it', like hard.
>I am reasonably certain that his rough handling of the steering like that,
>especially at zero miles per hour is what did it  to my van- - created wear
>like that. .
>In that case it was where the tie rod ends come out of the steering
>rack......
>completely ovaled out there, just ruined the rack.
>
>I've been saving an entire good used power steering rack, with the shaft
>that goes forward to the 'V' steering box up in there ......a part you'd
>never know was there , and the shaft has that u-joint in it.
>I'll have to check if a non-PS u-joint is the same.
>the two shafts, PS versus non-PS are slightly different, and the u-joint
>might be too.  Not sure if I want to break up the set, as it makes a perfect
>set to convert a non-PS vanagon to PS.
>scott
>www.turbovans.com
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Warren Lail" <wklail@GMAIL.COM>
>To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
>Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 5:40 PM
>Subject: steering rack u-joint
>
>
>>Greetings everyone,
>>
>>Recently when driving slowly on rough dirt roads I noticed a knocking,
>>rattling sound that I can feel in the steering.  Today when I arrived
>>home (and after I washed away tons of mud), I crawled under my bus and
>>it seems that the u-joint that connects to the power steering rack is
>>quite worn and loose.  Is this something that generally wears and
>>needs replacing?  It looks like it is attached to the steering rack
>>and to a rod running forward by a couple of integrated clamp-like
>>things with bolts through them.  Hard to replace?  Source for the
>>part?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Warren in Santa Fe
>>88 Westy