What a fright!!

[Oddball]

Hi All

 

Well had a great weekend away with the Clyde Valley group, charging round the highland for a couple of days in good weather. We ended up on Sunday late morning at Grantown on Spey meeting up with the Aberdeen and the Highlands & Island groups. During the afternoon a group of us were gathered round my 6 having a look under the bonnet (as you do) when Steve (Clyde Valley Leader) turned to me and said he had just seen a very worrying sight. He pointed down to the flexible joint at the top of the steering column and to my horror the pinch bolt was missing. That morning we had covered about 40 miles of empty twisty roads and I had no indication that there was any problem with the steering. On closer examination it was apparent that the steering wheel had slipped out of line, although I had not been aware of this happening. We reset the wheel and replaced the bolt, but I cannot understand what happened to the original bolt. The 6 was last out 5 days earlier, for its MOT. During this I watched as the car was checked and I can remember then testing the steering, one of them grabbed the steering column at the joint while the other turned the steering wheel. I may be wrong but I'm sure that bolt was in place during the MOT and can't see how it could have worked its way loss in such a short time. I rebuilt that column just over 6 years ago I will have used a new bolt and nyloc at the time, I have had no reason to touch it since. I am the only person who works on this car, so my only explanation is that either the MOT missed it or the bolt snapped some time on Sunday morning. Any thoughts?

 

Cameron.

[foster461]

Its hard to imagine that bolt, correctly tightened with its nyloc nut coming loose on its own. Its hard enough getting it undone when you need to. Its more likely that it was never installed in the first place or perhaps it was defective and sheared.

 

Not a bad idea to tug on the steering wheel once in a while when stationary just to make sure nothing is coming adrift, especially if you have been working in that area recently. If the bolts are loose but in place there will be some play but I dont think the steering column can completely detach because of the groove in the lower link and the flat on the upper. If the lower or upper bolt is missing though you have about half an inch of travel before something disconnects but by that time it will be pretty obvious.

 

Stan

[Bob Stubbs]

Cameron

 

Glad to see that you made it back OK in one piece. It certainly was really fortunate that Steve spotted the missing bolt as the consequences don't bear thinking about if he hadn't. After you left, I had a good look over the ground and checked the pavement area up to the grass and no sign of the offending bolt so unless, it's wedged itself in the chassis somewhere, it probably did shear off on your travels up here.

 

Between that and our guys having a deep meaningful discussion about the differences between PI distributors and carb distributors, it was an eventful day.

 

Hopefully we'll see you guys up here again next year.